CakeLove

I love cake. In fact, I love cake so much, I look at people who hate cake as if they’re Martians.

“You don’t like cake?” I exclaim. “What kind of human being doesn’t like cake? Cake is so good.”

After scenes like that, I’m usually worked up enough to stop by CakeLove or Love Cafe, two stores owned and operated by Warren Brown. I secretly hope he’ll be there on days I go in to scan a myriad of choices. Will it be a $7 slice of chocolate or cheese cake, or a $3 vanilla cupcake with lemon frosting? Man, just thinking about it…but it’s only 8:30 in morning. The store’s probably not open yet anyway.

Brown has been in the store during most of my visits, but he’s usually behind the counter with a plastic cap on his head mixing dough. One time I saw him in Love Cafe sitting on one of the couches.

“Congratulations on opening a second store (Love Cafe, across the street from CakeLove). Your business is a huge success. It’s wonderful to see,” I said.

“Thanks,” Brown said, “but I certainly didn’t do it alone.”

I’d read stories about him before. What started out as a dream for a government lawyer who wrote cake recipes while riding the Metro and baked in his free time has become dramatically real. Brown’s opening a second CakeLove, his third store, in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, and he’s signed on to do a show called “Sugar Rush” for the Food Network. From the Washington Post (reg. req.):

“Sugar Rush,” which will be shown on Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m., will debut in mid-October. “Recipe for Success,” an ongoing program, airs on Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. Brown’s episode is being filmed.

Each episode of “Sugar Rush” follows Brown as he visits restaurants, pastry shops and bakeries around the country to talk with pastry chefs and chocolatiers, then returns to his kitchen to cook a recipe he’s learned from them.

Yes, yes, all that is wonderful, but there’s something missing. Warren Brown needs a blog. He’d get crazy traffic. He should hire another entrepreneur who knows blogs to help him set it up, and I know just the woman person.

If you’re ever in D.C., stop by Love Cafe or CakeLove (or both!) and sample some of Brown’s bold yet delicate confections. Your waistline will curse you, but your tongue will show you nothing but love.

(Hat tip: Casey Lartigue)

Related stories:

• 26 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs
• How to Eat a Cupcake
• Black Society Pages
• Cake column (reg. req – BugMeNot)

(Cross-posted on The Language Artist)

Update: T-Steel: “[H]is story of how he found a passion for baking is similar to what I’m going through right now. I’m sick of information technology (on an enterprise level) and have found a passion. Now I just have to develop it.”