Adventures in Cake Competitions

These two cake ladies had one great adventure in Austin, TX. I wish I could report that it went off without a hitch, but there was an almost 9-1-1 worthy accident. The air conditioner was broken and we were trying to move to a new room, which meant going down a flight of stairs with all of our decorating supplies, entries, luggage, etc. We were on the last trip down with all of our entries in our hands and then it happened, "T" stepped off the sidewalk into a 4 inch hole and fell right on her face. She dropped all of her entries and I immediately go to the entries instead of checking on her. Only one flower was broken but it turns out "T" was injured pretty bad. Her leg had two huge goose eggs on it, it was swollen and red and she had sidewalk burn from ankle to knee. We decided not to take her to the hospital, but we did get some emergency supplies and doctored and wrapped the wound. When we got back to Arizona she seen the doctor who said there wasn't anything to worry about, but it was infected and he started her on a course of antibiotics. By this time her leg was swollen from ankle to mid thigh. Looking back on it we should have went to the energency room. With that being said; we can now tell you that the experience was unbelievable! On Saturday we took a class by Mark Seaman on henna decorating. What an amazing decorator! His first henna cake was outstanding and he made it really easy to learn henna decorating, with practice I should be good at it in no time. Later that day we had our first encounter with a clebrity in the cake world, Nicholas Lodge! He was a little on the quiet side, but we got our pictures taken with him. Later that night we attended the dinner gala where Nicholas Lodge, Bronwen Weber and Jacquy Pfeiffer were working on cake elements for a mystery cake while we ate. They were so funny and they gave the most amazing decorating tips. Afterwards I got to meet Bronwen Weber and of course, we got our picture with her too! It turns out that Bronwen is every bit as fun loving, chipper and nice as she is on the Food Network Challeneges. Sunday we attended a demo given by Bronwen Weber, got more pictures, more tips, more over the top Bronwen style and we loved every minute of it! Next we attended a demo by Elisa Strauss. I was beside myself with "celebrity awe". Talk about the nicest, funniest, down to earth decorator! She was our favorite person to watch, she talked about her job, her family and her life. She genuinly loves her fans and she gave me a hug, let me take 3 or 4 pictures with her and signed a copy of Confetti Cakes for us. Our adventure in Austin was amazing and we decided we're doing it all again next year. Oh, and I should mention that we won in the advanced techniques division! I won 1st place with my cocoa painting, "T" won 2nd place with her flower spray and I won 3rd place with my daffodil flower plaque. Two Cake Ladies from Arizona really do have what it takes!

~J~