Kathleen CeI Photos

Anthony Bourdain, Alice Waters & Duff Goldman at the Connecticut Forum's "Food For Thought" panel discussion, May 14, 2009. For more photos, click on the photo gallery below.

  MEDIA: Photo Gallery »

At the end of the last night's "Food For Thought" Connecticut Forum panel discussion at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, among beloved bad-ass Anthony Bourdain, locavore legend Alice Waters and "Ace of Cakes" star Duff Goldman, Chef Duff spotted someone in the crowd and jumped off the stage to give her (and her daughters) a hug.

It was Carol Murdock (pictured with her daughters) of West Hartford's Classic Cakes, who Chef Duff considers his "cake mom" as he told The Advocate in an interview last week, explaining that he's forever thankful to Murdock for helping him through his first decorating competition for Bon Appetit. "She's a wonderful lady," Chef Duff said in the interview.

When I caught up to Murdock in the crowd, I asked her if Chef Duff had seen the nice article (and accompanying beautiful photos) on her cake shop that appeared in that day's Hartford Courant. Great timing, since Duff lives in Baltimore and was just in town for the Forum event on the same day this "cake mom's" shop was featured so prominently.

He had, Murdock told me, and showed me the shirt she was wearing that said "Duff's Cake Mom" with a drawing of a Charm City-style cake off to the side. Chef Duff made the shirt for her. She wore it proudly at the Forum event. (See photo in the slide show, above)

While Bourdain was his usual blunt, witty, bad-ass self, and Waters as fairy godmotherly as you'd expect, it was Duff Goldman who really took the cake last night, winning new fans among Forum-goers.  Folks were overheard during intermission saying they weren't big Duff buffs before, but were pleasantly surprised to find how  "insightful,"  "articulate"  and charming he was. He really aced it!