Viva Las Vegas!

Somehow I managed to convince the President of 3C Corp (Lorne Campbell) that I should go on my first business trip to Las Vegas for the IBIE (International Baking Industry Exposition) which is an extremely large Conference and Expo that is only done every 3 years and encompasses all things baking and pastry.
There were to be classes and seminars that I was interested in and also I wanted to spend time in the expo halls checking out vendors and seeing what kinds of products would be beneficial to our business now that we are thinking of expansion.I signed up to take two classes and my first class was the first thing I did on the first day which was a cake sculpting class with Bronwen Weber who is a famous cake artist in the industry. It was a four hour class and she was an excellent teacher. We sculpted a Vegas showgirl cake but I think mine ended up looking like Carol Burnett as a fortune teller.Later I spent time in the exhibit hall and watched Ashley Vicos give a demo on easy sculpted cakes. I liked her demo because she tries to use as much cake as possible by baking different shapes and trying to carve less thereby wasting less cake. Brilliant - she too is very well known and has been on TV and graciously let me have my photo taken with her and we spent a lot of time talking. I could totally see me being her friend.After the day was over and I had consumed enough sugar to last me a lifetime - I went back to the Hopkinson's house - I got to stay with them to cut costs and also because I missed them and wanted to spend some time with them. Chloe and I made a craft together and I let them cut and eat the cake I had made.