ICES Convention San Diego California, Aug 12-15

Spent just a little over 2 days in beautiful San Diego to attend the ICES Convention at the Town & Country Resort. Received 2 pins and a Certificate for my Display and Demo.  I did a demonstration on pulled sugar flowers for wedding cakes. My class was completely sold out, and I personally tried to get tickets to my own demo for some friends I met at the convention.  They won't give me any, I was told, it was soldout to the maximum number of attendees, and they even had to change my room from Royal Palm 4 to California, the biggest demo room.  I was very happy with the turn out, and also how comfortable I was at the demo.  I showed fellow cake decorators from all over the world how to pull calla lilies, Japanese anemones, roses, peonies and also cymbidium orchids, in one hour.  I had an awesome response from the attendees.  I also am very appreciative of the help I got from some vendors including Caljava for the Fondx, Cake Play for the greatest new product at the convention, isomalt sticks for your glue gun, NY Cake and Baking Supplies for the silicone leaf molds, the Town and Country Chef and also their Exec Pastry Chef for loaning me a propane tank for my torch (can't fly with one).  Also,big thanks to my friend and CMSA Jing Palasigue who acted as my assistant and my former student Jaimee Park who helped me with my prep.

ICES Convention St Charles, Illinois

Late last year, Mark Seaman, who served as one of the judges for our Gingerbread Competition asked us to lend a helping hand in the construction of the Illinois show cake for the International Cake Exploration Society. I immediately agreed, and Mark delivered the fondant, styrofoam and wooden board for the project. We started working on the project in February, I believe, with the help of a lot of students. This week, the annual convention started at the Pheasant Run Resort and will continue on until Sunday, Aug 2. We also helped set up the tiers, made hundreds of rocks, wrapped black eyed susan stems, cattails, served as gophers, and whatever necessary to finish.

The tiers were designed to represent all of Illinois, from the corn fields, to the violets (Illinois state flower)to the Elgin Joliet train line, the jazz instruments, the Fox River, the prairie landscape, and the Chicago skyline.