WASHINGTON: A New Year’s resolution a few years ago drove US government litigator Warren Brown to trade the courtroom for the kitchen, reinventing his career and grabbing attention across the United States as the guy who can really bake cakes.
After less than two years into his legal career and armed with credit cards, a $125,000 small business loan and no formal culinary training, Brown, 35, founded his bakery, CakeLove, in a trendy part of the US capital with a simple concept that everything be made with natural ingredients.
This self-taught baker’s popularity over the past few years has since expanded well beyond Washington, with requests nationwide for his cakes and plans to open more outlets in the Washington area and in several cities over the next few years.
Named one of America’s most eligible bachelors by People magazine, the Cleveland native has appeared on US network news programmes and talk shows touting confections he says are inspired by his simple desire to create old fashioned ‘scratchmade’ cakes.
“Warren is somebody who we’ve had our eye on for a very long time,” said Food Network’s Kathleen Finch, director of prime-time programming.
Later in October, Brown will be the host of a new 13-episode Food Network programme, Sugar Rush, spotlighting desserts across the country. “We very much see this show as a good star vehicle for Warren,” said Finch, whose network is piped into 85 million homes.
But while Brown’s simple style of baking has grabbed a loyal fan base, it’s his pursuit of the American dream to own his own business centred around his passion for baking that has given him notoriety.
After graduating in 1998 with a law degree from George Washington University, Brown cut off his long hair and took a job as a litigator for the US Department of Health and Human Services, he said.
After a year, he decided this could not be his lifelong career path.
“I was daydreaming about food all the time, at my desk, on my lunch break and on the way to work,” the tall, thin dreadlocked baker said in a recent interview. “I wanted to avoid a mid-life crisis I could predict.”
Though he claims not to have a sweet tooth, Brown says that while he has been cooking for most of his life, the first time he ever baked anything was in 1999, when he turned his hand to an American classic, a chocolate cake.—Reuters
