Subtitle: The Whole Truth About Cookie Events
It's been an unbelievable week at Cookie'sCool in many respects. As I write this post, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Milan, where I'm spending the night before my return trip to the States tomorrow . . . and I'm exhausted. So rather than share my typical day-to-day, blow-by-blow event journal, I'm going to sum up Europe's first-ever cookie convention with a very brief photo recap - and then take a much-needed nap! 
Ready? Here goes, starting with Day 1 in an apartment in Genoa . . . (Pardon, again, for the fuzzy iPhone photos!)
It's always great to meet new and old cookie friends! Here are (many of) my fellow instructors, CookieCrazie, The Hungry Hippopotamus, and Arty McGoo, ready to depart for our prep day at the event venue, Palazzo della Meridiana. We'll meet up with De Koekenbakkers, Evelin Decora, Dolcimaterieprime, DolceLulÙ, and MÉzesmanna later.
It's eye-opening to see extraordinary new places. (This is the ceiling in one of the many amazing classrooms at the Palazzo.)
It's ego-boosting (and a little weird) to see your face on banners and programs . . .
It's fun to shop for the latest cookie innovations. (So many great vendors here! This lovely lady supplied me with a cupcake for lunch each day!)
It's exciting to discover shiny new products. (Love this Pavoni luster spray!)
(This Tauro dehydrator and the Squires Kitchen royal icing mix, bottom right, were great finds too.)
And it's inspiring to learn the ins and outs of others' techniques, like how to make this stunning wafer paper poinsettia by my friend Pinuccia de Panis.
But the prep days are long (usually 12 hours or more), hard, and often chaotic, as our kitchen attests.
(More behind-the-scenes cookie chaos.)
And the unforeseen natural disaster can put a real wrench in the works. (Between the all-Italy transportation strike on Friday, the first day of the event, and the flooding on Saturday, which left some students stranded and some teachers translator-less, we had more than the usual number of surprises.)
But in the end, the happy faces of instructors (Pam Sneed here . . .
. . . and Stephanie Kappel here),
. . . smiling event organizers (Laura Canepa, Cookie'sCool mastermind, right),
. . . and engaged and appreciative students make every second of hard work and lost sleep worth it.
The End. (Or at least until we meet again! )
Comments (7)