Food Dude: The Sweete Bye and Bye

The lawyer turned superstar sugar artist and baker announced a couple of weeks ago her Ruth's Sweete Justice Bakery and Sugar Art Shoppe, 7606 N May Ave., will close, but because she is a cancer survivor, many have assumed her health has taken a turn for the worse. That's not the case; far from it, in fact.

The truth is, Rickey is in such demand that her travel schedule has made it nearly impossible for her to run the bakery the way she wants.

Now, Rickey will focus her energy on paying forward the miracles that are her life and career.

A Putnam City West grad with education degrees in speech, drama and English from the former Arkadelphia Methodist College is probably not the first person you'd suspect would become a lawyer.

Rickey did.

Neither would you suspect someone with a successful law career to drop it to learn pastry arts and run a grocery store bakery.

Rickey did.

And you wouldn't suspect a baker from Oklahoma City to become a regular on national television.

Rickey did.

How about beating leukemia?

Rickey did.

While no scriptwriter would dare try selling such a tall tale in Hollywood, Rickey is living it. So, it's no surprise folks around the world want to warm their hands in the light of this rock-star pastry artist who claimed her fame not by TV appearances but by passion, boundless energy and old-fashioned elbow grease — which she could probably depict in butter cream and fondant.

After about four years in a grocery store bakery, Rickey opened her own place in 2000. She developed a reputation locally and was in high demand. Then came the contests and the 250 or so ribbons wrangled across the country.

With a reputation for immaculate wedding cakes and delectable cookies, Ruth's Sweete Justice today is either in a class by itself or in one in with an abbreviated roll call. That reputation landed her on national television, where you'll still often see her. All things considered, demand for her talents has taken a slice out of her schedule.

“I'm very hands-on,” Rickey said. “And my schedule has kept me away from the bakery to the point where I feel like I've put too much on my staff.”

When she told staff of her plans, their only surprise was it wasn't coming at the end of 2012.

“I've always prided myself on being one step ahead,” Rickey said.

Rickey got her own surprise when she learned staff members were not only ready for the change but looking forward to it.

“A couple of my girls are going back to school,” she said. “All of them expressed they were ready for a change.”

Ruth's Sweete Justice leaves behind a roster of wedding cakes for country music stars, governors and dignitaries as long Kevin Durant's arm.

“We've been blessed to do cakes for many important people, but we never put any less effort or commitment into cakes we did for the thousands of everyday people we were fortunate enough to serve,” she said.

Most of all, though, Rickey says she'll miss her bakery family, whom she refers to as her kids.