Before Kelly and Paul DeRocco found themselves in Oscar’s orbit in Los Angeles on Friday, they knew they wouldn’t just be rubbing shoulders with today’s Hollywood elite.
Invited back to have their gourmet fudge included in celebrity swag bags during a pre-Oscars event today, the Sooke couple will also have encounters with the spirits of bygone screen icons.
The husband-and-wife team own Sooke’s Fudge In a Round and will showcase their fudge confections during Product Hollywood, an event at Hollywood Post 43 of the American Legion, where Charlton Heston, Mickey Rooney, Gene Autry and Ronald Reagan ounce imbibed.
The clubhouse is a throwback to an era when Hollywood luminaries such as Cecil B. De Mille and Mary Pickford would meet in a small church at Hollywood and Vine before the American Legion’s Hollywood branch opened in 1929, with an auditorium, ballroom, library and cabaret room featured in The Shining.
It’s the second time in six months the DeRoccos have been to Los Angeles to hand out their tasty treats that come in 35 flavours, including maple walnut, macadamia nut, butter pecan and key lime. To make their gourmet fudge as creamy as possible, most ingredients are organic, with cream and butter purchased from local farmers.
They spent a weekend there last September for a pre-Emmy Awards event, filling swag bags for nominees, handing out fudge packed into tiny tubs, and chatting about their products.
They wasted no time getting into the Oscar mood after landing at LAX on Friday. Kelly, 46, started shooting photos and video for their Facebook page outside the Dolby Theatre during Oscar preparations. She joked around with an apparently amused security guard, and they met a chatty gentleman wearing a top hat and red tails who told them he had once met “your mayor” — the late Rob Ford.
As Paul observed after their last Los Angeles visit: “You know you’re not in Sooke anymore.”
Indeed, it’s worlds away from the Sooke Sweet and Pop Shoppe, 6250 Sooke Rd., and local markets where their fudge is sold.
“Now we know about the process, how to set up, work with the handlers and so on,” Kelly said. “It’s go, go, go from the time it starts until it ends.”
During their pre-Emmy visit, they spent all day telling guests about their products, taking orders and posing for photographs when they weren’t offering samples. They also chatted with other vendors, such as a woman who shared stories about meeting Penny Marshall, Ed Asner, Honey Boo Boo and Eric Roberts.
Kelly’s memorable moments included encounters with producers of the reality series Vanderpump Rules, God’s Not Dead and the Fox series Pitch.
She said a highlight was meeting teen singer-songwriter Grace VanderWaal, who had just won America’s Got Talent.
As they did last time, the fudge makers plan to wander down Hollywood Boulevard giving away free samples of leftovers. They were just happy they could have some pre-event fun in Los Angeles on Friday after a busy week making and packaging fudge.
They’ve come a long way on the local confection scene since they moved to Saanich from Ontario 10 years ago, relocating to Sooke in 2014.
Before they launched the business in 2012, Paul worked as an airport security screener. “He was the guy who took your toothpaste away,” said Kelly.
It got started eight years ago after they visited the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory at the Tsawwassen Quay Market and bought some chocolate coconut fudge.
“I had never tried fudge and we ate the whole thing on the ferry coming home,” said Kelly, who later discovered the flavour wasn’t available in Victoria.
“So we got the recipe and started experimenting, never thinking we’d go into the business. It all started from one pot on the stove.”
