Ace of Cakes: Duff Goldman

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Why is the new Food Network show Ace of Cakes worth watching? It won't teach much of anything about "making" cakes: it is about decorating cakes. And you probably won't be able to duplicate the decorating process -- unless you happen to have power tools in your kitchen and lots of lots of talent + attitude. In fact, if ever drama made it from kitchen to the filming can, Ace of Cakes is probably that show, premiering August 17, 2006, at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Fast-paced, irreverent personalities at the Charm City Cakesin Baltimore, MD, exude as star Duff Goldman and crew work to create extravagant art pieces made out of cake. In the premier show, Duff & Co. create a replica of the Pimlico clubhouse and a Jeep, complete with rivets in the wheels -- all edible. Duff has been on the Food Network in plenty of competitions, and he's appeared on FN's Sugar Rush, as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He has made cakes for the Clinton and Bush White House. For all that, what really put him in front of the camera for his own show was a live stage show he did in Baltimore called Fuck You Let's Bake. Duff says that in the stage show, which he is no longer doing, he would make souffles while fighting a gang of ninjas or running an obstacle course. The show included a sexy assistant, a punk rock guitarist, and a straight man/announcer who was Duff's nemesis. Duff's brother, Willie, works in Hollywood at Authentic Entertainment, a small production company. Duff sent a tape of the show out to him and after a pitch meeting, he got the company to make the pilot. I do a lot of lectures, entrepreneurship stuff, at cooking schools, talking to the students about why it is good to cook; asking them why they want to cook. Cooking sucks. You work 12 hours a day -- why would you do that? You have to love it. I don't have business background. I started Charm City Cakes when I was only 24. Students want to know stuff like that. I went into this [TV] pitch meeting, and I said, this is what I do: be myself. Duff claims not to be interested in becoming a celebrity chef. He wants to do more international travel, like a recent job that took him to Santorini, Greece, to bake a cake for a Virginia couple marrying there. "I am all about pushing the craft of cake making, I see cooking and cake making as one of the last craft tradition." With the national exposure he'll get from his Food Network show he hopes to scale back operations at Charm City Cakes, so that he takes on only the most challenging projects. He says he is considering writing a book and endorsing products. Don't be surprised if he puts out a record label, since he has a band and practically everyone who works for him is a musician— none are trained pastry chefs. But he also has deeper goals for Ace of Cakes: I hope that it is inspirational. I want people to think to themselves, that if a guy that used to do graffiti can open a high end shop, maybe I can paint a picture, or start a pesto business, or anything, to be inspired, not quit their job, but roll the dice and take a class on pottery, just anything… It doesn't take a genius to get off your ass and go. Growing up on Cape Cod, Duff became a graffiti artist as a teenager. He claims it taught him about getting art right: If you put something up that is no good, you get beat up. You have to be good. You have to plan, sketch, think things out. You have to understand scale. Duff came to the Baltimore area to play ice hockey in college, ended up in culinary school at the CIA, did a stage Thomas Keller. He returned to Baltimore after a stint as sous chef of Todd English's Olives in Washington D.C. under Steve Manino (see Super Chef, pp. 99-100, 104-106). One job at a Colorado resort gave him a chance to try his hand at ice carving. In fact, he advises young culinary school graduates to get a job in a large hotel and try everything until they find what they like best. Ace of Cakes is the first Food Network show about a Baltimore chef: There has been a lot of press: it has given Baltimore a boost. We had The Wire, and Homicide, but they didn't give a pretty picture of this place. I think that people are starting to see the cool side of Baltimore. We have incredible music, restaurant, theaters, cool stuff. Duff just wrapped up a performance art show, creating a sea horse cake at the National Aquarium in Baltimore for the 25th anniversary: I am working on a '49 Woodie that shoots fire out of the tailpipes. We run the gamut from super elegant to super crazy. I try not to pigeon hole myself. Ace of Cakes is a welcome, upbeat, fun to watch show about how art happens, from the characters of the bakers, to the demands of the customers. You won't see a white coat or a toque -- and, at least in this case, you won't miss them. Related news: Broadcast & Cable Baltimore Sun Baltimore Business Journal Washington Post Newsday Cincinnati Post The Oregonian Minneapolis Star-Tribune The Examiner (Washington DC) Baltimore Magazine City Paper Urbanite CIA Alumni News Previous articles: Jamie & Bobbie Deen: Road Tasted Guy Fieri Wants to be a Super Chef Top Chef: Tom Colicchio Next Food Network Star Winner 2 Celebrity Cooking Showdown: Shown Off Celebrity Food Fight: Boot Camp Rachael Ray: Media Empire Sugar Rush: Wednesday, October 26 Sugar Rush with Warren Brown [Food Television - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to superchefblog