Steele's new career may not be total cakewalk

March 20, 2008 at 2:51AM
Ryan Seacrest, who planted a kiss on Heidi Klum at the Oscars, took the black tie definition to the dark extreme.
Ryan Seacrest, who planted a kiss on Heidi Klum at the Oscars, took the black tie definition to the dark extreme. (Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Letting them eat cake should serve Hennepin County Commissioner Penny Steele very well in her next career.

At year's end, Steele is leaving the office she was elected to in 1994 and becoming a full-time artistic cakemaker. Her steelecustomcakes.com business partner will be son Mark Steele, an aerospace engineering major who has always liked sculpting.

"I've always been fascinated by it," she said. "I had taken hobby [cakemaking] lessons. My son Kevin got married almost three years ago, and I decided to get really serious about it. It's gotten to be kind of a big deal, the people who teach the higher end of the art. I decided to spend all my free time in the last part of my term studying with some of the New York designers. The Twin Cities don't have a lot of it. I'm not just going to do snooty cakes. I'm going to expand the range."

Duff Goldman, who is Food TV's "Ace of Cakes," has helped educate average folks to the world of designer cakes. Steele said Goldman was curious about how Mark executed a cake that looked like a crocodile; it was displayed at a Rockford, Ill., competition. It's so lifelike that a St. Kate's student dropped her books and ran the day Mark took it the college's St. Paul campus to show it to his girlfriend.

Mark "is like a wizard," the commish said. "He can turn anything into a cake without even thinking about it. I actually have to think about it."

One thing she doesn't have to think twice about is disclosing her cakemaking secrets. "There is a secret, how I mix them," Steele said, "but it's a family secret."

For years Steele has been making cakes for friends and political colleagues: "I probably spent more than $20,000 practicing and working on some of the more artistic elements of cake design." These cakes were made at her house. Now that she's licensed to sell cakes, she needs commercial space, which she has secured at Peg's Countryside Cafe, a Medina catering kitchen.

The commish was in the delicate position of getting her business license from a county department that is under the auspices of the commissioners. Steele said she recused herself from all of the votes that would have been a conflict of interest, and she requested no variances "or anything exceptional."

There is film at www.startribune.com/video of an exceptional, approximately $400 cake that looks like a bottle of wine she made for her husband, Paul Steele. As a bonus feature, Steele tells her Al Franken cake story, which I didn't exactly follow, but then again I'm as dense as one of those flourless cakes.

A shirt for Seacrest Ryan Seacrest wasn't fated to wind up on popsugar.com's "Worst Dressed at the Oscars" list.

Heidi Comfort, of Wayzata's Davis Comfort, made one of her custom shirts for Seacrest and sent it to him before the Oscars. "He should have gone with my beautiful, handmade white shirt," Comfort said. "He doesn't wear anything that's very exciting, and he is a very handsome guy. He should wear something that accentuates his beauty rather than what he wore to the Oscars. He looked pretty mucky in that tuxedo."

The tuxedo looked like it was black, but the lapel was olive or brown. Whichever, it wasn't working.

Comfort sent Seacrest's shirt in care of his producer at E! TV; she figured the mail situation at "American Idol" was a zoo.

But how did she figure out Seacrest's measurements? "You know how you size people up? You know what size another person is when you see them in photographs together. You can tell height and weight," she said, adding, "I've sized up a lot of people."

The next time kismet arranges a shirt for Seacrest, he should wear it.

Minding his mouthfuls There's a funny commercial showing "Bizarre Foods" host Andrew Zimmern clearing out a staff lunchroom after they see what he's eating.

The delicacies that man puts in his mouth are shocking. Wonder what Zimmern's doctor says about the fact that Andrew is something of the Hannibal Lecter of the civilized world.

"He has never mentioned it," Zimmern e-mailed. "Eating what I eat is safer than eating some of the fast-food junk sold all over the USA."

This response came before Tuesday's show from Russia, where Zimmern ate a big hunk of fat that he said was like bacon without the meaty part. A diet of that cannot be doctor approved.

C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS or cj@startribune.com. E-mailers, please state a subject -- "Hello" doesn't count. More of her attitude can be seen on Fox 9 Thursday mornings.

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