You wish your office was this cool.

//Words: Jeremiah Griffey

The web site Anysoldier.com allows soldiers stationed overseas to request supplies from everyday citizens that want to make their lives a little more comfortable. Requests range from soap and bug repellent to MP3 players and cashews. Each month, Duff Goldman and his compadres at Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, Md. search the site for a soldier to shower with gifts. Recently, they showered gifts upon a soldier whose sole request was a bottle of hot sauce.

This is just one of the ways Goldman uses his influence as star of the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes to make the world a better place. His infectious grin and hearty laugh provide a nice reprieve from the moronic reality programming rotting American culture. The show also exhibits the least dysfunctional work environment imaginable—modeling how entrepreneurs and managers should treat their employees. He even pays half of the health insurance for his employees. All of this while working on a cake that will, if everything goes correctly, shoot a 20-foot stream of fire into the air.

Goldman took time out of his busy schedule to chat with Geek about his successes, Star Wars and Harry Potter. Fortunately, he even let out a few of his patented belly laughs.

Did you ever think your career would progress the way it has?

Duff: Never. I love to bake. I baked and I baked and I baked and I worked in all kinds of different environments. TV and entertainment was never even a blip on the radar. If you talked to my mom, she’d say: “People march to the beat of a different drum. Duff marches to his own orchestra.” It’s completely true. For example, right now I’ve created a culture in my bakery, aside from TV, where I don’t hire anybody from culinary school. Everybody I get, they’re musicians, they’re artists. Geoff, my executive sous chef, was a model builder for an architecture firm. What I do is I get creative people to do what they do best and I encourage them to think. I give them nothing but praise. If something needs to be redone, I’ll see it, but I’ll wait until the person who is working on it sees it themselves. I’m not standing over people’s shoulders. It really gives people a sense of ownership over their work, and it really works out because it gives them drive to make something the best they can, because they say, “This is mine.”

Yeah, one of my questions for later on was going to be, “Are there any creative people left in the Baltimore area who don’t work for you?”

[Big Duff laugh]. That’s funny. Yeah, there’re a lot. They’re just the people I search out. They’re my friends. My circle of family.

You are aware that because of Ace of Cakes, you’re making everyone who watches your show jealous because they don’t work in a place as cool as Charm City Cakes?

I want people to see what we do and I want them to say, “Man, I wish I did that.” Beyond that, I want them to say, I’m going to do that. I’m going to create my own culture. I’m going to figure out that there’s a way of doing business where employers and employees can be healthy.

Your show’s kind of an odd phenomenon, given that the rest of the “reality” shows on TV are more rooted in scandal or odd sexual behaviors.

I think people enjoy seeing a bunch of homies, you know what I mean? “Yo man, they’re all homies. They hang out.” I get the weirdest questions sometimes. We do these demos and speaking things and autograph signings and people ask, “Are you involved with this person? What’s the gossip?” It’s really funny because there is none. We’re all just homies who have known each other for a long time. Mary Alice, for example: I was her maintenance man in college. She left me a frantic message that she had dropped her mother’s pearls into the sink. So I went to her room, took her sink apart, got the pearls out, put her sink back together, cleaned her pearls off and we’ve been friends ever since. She was working in non-profits, all kinds of places. One day I went to my web designer who was located right across the street from where Mary Alice was working and went to go say hi. She comes out and says, “Hey, come back to my office.” She burst into tears and said, “I hate this place.” I said, “That’s funny, I need a manager to manage my bakery because right now I find myself answering emails and phone calls. The business-y part. I’m a cook.” [laughs]. I needed someone who was good, so I was like, “OK, here’s the deal. I’ll pay you half of what you’re making now, and you’re going to work twice as much and have more stress. But you’re going to have a whole lot of fun. She up and quit her job.

Has her pay increased with the success of the show?

She’s doing just fine.

Are you seeing a lot of competition now that the show’s been on the air? The cakes you make are on the “hip” side—are there other people vying for your throne?

Um…you know, I don’t really see it as a throne so much. I’m definitely not the best that’s out there. We just try to make things that people haven’t made before. If somebody wants, for an example from the show, a rat on a manhole cover, go for it. Right on. If somebody wants a couple of zombies eating a guy’s brain, go for it. A DJ turntable with motors and lights, that’s ok. Get that. Basically what we’re trying to do is not be the best, but our mission is to be the best we can be and push boundaries a little bit. Let people know that there are no limits. We really believe that. It’s OK to get black wedding cake, you know?

You’ve made a Death Star. Can you tell me about your history with Star Wars?

I’m just into it. I enjoy the movies, especially the first three. [George] Lucas was really doing so much with nothing. He was inventing as he was going along. He was just like Peter Jackson. He invented process as he did it. “I want this to happen. How can I make this happen? Well, just figure it out.” I think that’s sort of what we do. We invent process. People criticize us for using Styrofoam or copper tubing, or welding. Yeah, we do. It’s OK. We make it safe. We are by far the cleanest kitchen in Baltimore. We try to push the boundaries as far as we can go. Maybe that’s our throne. Not being the best, but being the most outrageous. Having the spotlight on us, I think we want to inspire people to be the best at whatever they’re doing, be it crochet or pesto. Get up out of the cubicle and start your bean business. Start your flower business.

Have you ever attempted a Millennium Falcon? Could you make it fire lasers?

I could definitely make lasers work. Without a doubt. I could even make the back let up. But here’s the thing. If it was my dream Star Wars cake, I wouldn’t do the Falcon, just because it’s so easy. It’s flat, it’s basically a square carved out, piped and decorated. My dream Star Wars cake would be the scene in Empire where Han Solo opens up the belly of the tauntaun and shoves Luke in there. I think that’d be pretty cool. [Duff laugh]

Would you wait for someone to commission the cake, or would you just make it some day?

I think one of these days if I have time I’m just going to do it. We did the premiere for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and we did a model of Hogwarts. It was like five feet by three feet by four feet high. That was really cool. I’m a big Harry Potter fan.

Were you shocked to find out that Dumbledore is gay?

Whatever. I really respect J.K. Rowling for being herself and not pulling any punches. I think that maybe opened up the door for some fan fiction. Who knows. I know she’s done with the series, but I think there’s so much material that people can write about, just like with Star Wars. There are always people writing Star Wars books. There’s tons of stuff to write about Harry Potter. I think J.K. also wants to shock the Yanks a little bit. I think she’s like, “Hey, guess what, Christian Right America? It’s OK to be gay.” There was that whole Christian Right backlash against Harry Potter because magic is the devil’s and it’s evil. Maybe she was like, “Oh yeah, you want to see evil? [laughs] This is really going to touch people off…and Hermione had an abortion!” Whatever. He’s gay. Big deal. He also has blue eyes. Harry Potter has a scar. Ron has red hair and freckles.