Let them eat … Alabama’s Cliff Simon gives cakes away to strangers daily
Cliff Simon, a resident of the Glen Iris neighborhood of Birmingham, is giving away cakes that he bakes. (contributed)
On Dec. 25, Cliff Simon baked a tart.
It wasn’t his first foray into baking – far from it. He’s designed more than 150 sets for stage productions, almost 50 of those while teaching theater design at UAB. But all along, he also designed and baked cakes, both for fun and business. Before coming to Birmingham, he baked cakes for celebrities at Radio City Music Hall in New York and created cakes as art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
But this Julia Child apple tart was different. On the day after Christmas, he placed it on the front porch of the home he shares with his husband, Julian Hazlett, in the Glen Iris neighborhood of Birmingham and posted a note on Facebook:
“Whoever gets here first, just come, take and eat,” it read in part. “More tomorrow.”
That was a month ago, and since then, nearly every day he’s done the same thing – baked a cake, packaged it up, put it on his porch, left a note on Facebook and given it away to the first person who showed up.
“I’ve done between 30 and 35 cakes,” Simon says.
The Julia Child tart that started Cliff Simon’s cake-a-day project. (Cliff Simon)
The cake-a-day project was inspired by a Texas woman that Hazlett read about. He shared her story with Simon. Beginning during the pandemic, she has made loaves of sourdough bread, giving them away to family and friends.
“By the time Julian was done telling me, I was crying so much I couldn’t get the words out,” Simon says. “But I managed, and I said, ‘That’s what I’m going to do.’”
And so he has. The baker and artist who has made cakes for Madonna, Diana Ross and other celebrities, is now baking cakes and giving them away just to make people happy. He’s made flourless tortes, an Italian cake decorated with raspberry whipped cream, a Budapest coffee cake, almond cake and many more.
The cakes are often picked up quickly after Simon says they’re ready.
“Sometimes they are picked up immediately after I post,” he says. “Sometimes longer, but being retired, I forget that people go to work. I wish more older people could get them, but I do not want to control any of this. I need, for some reason, for it to be free of any of my influence and just to give it away.”
Often, he’ll give a bit of history about the cake in his Facebook posts, but education is not his primary purpose.
“I care most that I make them and that people get them, for nothing,” Simon says.
A Cliff Simon cake ready for the taking. (Cliff Simon)
Some people have tried to help pay for the cakes, and Simon has done his best to dissuade them.
“I got a gift certificate to Publix, and I started to explain to the person that I want this to be free of money, but I realized I could hurt someone’s feelings by refusing,” he says.
Others have left other non-monetary gifts for Simon, including a display of paper and cardboard that says LOVE.
“It’s teaching me, despite my difficulty in life with believing it, that people are good,” he says. “I always joke that I think in a past life I must have been a real creep, and that now, in this one, it’s time to do better.”
Simon is all-in on the cake-a-day project and sees no end in sight.
“The response is certainly gratifying, and I am just taking it in and maintaining a level attitude,” Simon says. “As far as I’m concerned, I feel like this is part of my life now.”
Learn more about Cliff and his cakes at cliffcakes.com.
