Phew! It was a busy long weekend of cookie decorating at Chef Nicholas Lodge's highly acclaimed school of sugar art (aka ISAC) just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. It was so busy, in fact, that I had zero time for my usual daily recounting of events. That said, I'm going to compress the entire jam-packed three days into one fun- and photo-filled recap post for you. Ready or not!
Prep Day, April 4
My time at ISAC actually begins the day before my two-day class on Saturday and Sunday. I arrive at the school around midday Friday to check on the class setup and to assist with any last-minute baking and decorating. Unlike many of my two-day classes, this class will cover four, not three, projects - and so it's super critical that everyone be on the top of their game and that all prep be in tip-top shape before the doors open at 9:30 am on Saturday.
But before Gretchen Norman (the class coordinator that weekend), Anne (a long-time veteran at ISAC), and I start pouring through prep lists and counting the vast array of cookies already cooling on speed racks, Gretchen gives me a tour of the expansive school. I am especially enamored with the bathrooms that Nick has decorated in various baking and decorating motifs, and the extreme color-coordination in each of the demo studios! (Nick's is all green and white, with touches of black, and Studio B - which I take is reserved for guest instructors like me - is mostly orange with sunny pops of yellow.)
The very orange Studio B with Gretchen (left) and Anne (right) hard at work.
One of three or more bathrooms done up in baking motifs.
Another fancy baking bathroom.
Nick's all-green-and-white studio.
A case-load of Nick's famous sugar flowers, teasers for the many classes he conducts annually in Studio A. In addition to housing classrooms, the school has a veritable "candy store" of gum paste and other decorating supplies for cake enthusiasts.
A sunshine-y corner in Studio B.
After sopping up as much of Chef Lodge's delightful space as I can, we turn to the business of the day. We determine that there are about 180 leaves and 30 contoured basket sides still to bake, and about 100 cookies to topcoat so that they'll be completely dry for stenciling and stamping the next day. Not to forget: the students' stations must also be set. We're joined by Nick-o-phile and loyal ISAC-goer Linda Gayle Bennett, who will also be attending my class, and Molly, who usually works the front desk. Both ladies graciously assist me and Gretchen with the cranking out of topcoats, while Anne expertly tends to the ovens.
Freshly coated cookies drying for the next day.
A small side table with an assortment of my "show" cookies and mounted photos.
I stay until about 7:30 pm to finish up a few stray cookie topcoats and to reorganize the list of tools required at each station, taking care to isolate those that each student will use versus those that can be shared. Anne - bless her heart - finally turns off the school's lights at about midnight after finishing the last basket side and setting up the students' stations. Back in my hotel room, I review my notes and make minor adjustments to the class flow for the next day; field a large backlog of email; and then finally put head to pillow around 1 am. A long, but productive day!
Class Day 1, April 5
I arrive at the school at 8 am to mix all of the icing colors and consistencies needed for the day. We're doing four projects, as I mentioned, and the icing for those projects needs to be cut 13 different ways for each of the 13 students. So we're talking no small amount of icing! Ten batches (using 20 pounds of sugar) were mixed by Molly the previous night, and now they need to be turned from white into blue for topcoating the eggs; pink for stenciling the vases; and purple, more blue, yellow, and two shades of green for marbling the flowers and leaves that go in the wedding cakes boxes, contoured baskets, and vases. I finish just in time to fine-tune a few details on my own demo station before the students start to trickle in at 9 am and all the hellos and introductions begin.
Class officially starts at 9:30 am. Today is an important "laying the foundation" day, I explain, with each person having 15 large pieces to topcoat and 25 smaller ones to marble and detail by about midday. It's important to build those topcoating foundations just right, I add - meaning very level and thoroughly dry. If not done just so, it will be harder to do all of the fun embellishing work, like stenciling and stamping, planned mostly for the second day. Before Day 1 ends, I give stenciling and finish work a brief preview on the vase pieces we topcoated the day before. Fortunately, they dried quite well, even without the use of a dehydrator, so all of the pieces topcoated by students today should be in prime shape for Day 2.
Day 1 stations all set up and students arriving. BTW, that's Margaret Vivian Cotrim on the far right, owner of Cookieria and organizer of a large cookie event in Brazil later this summer.
Heads down and all eyes on cookies, students concentrate on mastering the essentials of outlining, flooding, topcoating, marbling, and intro stenciling on the first day.
Class Day 2, April 6
This is the day the real fun begins, but also when cookie-stamina needs to kick in! Each person has 15 big (3 or more-inch) cookie pieces to detail with a combination of techniques, and then all four projects to assemble using three distinct construction methods - mitering, sandwiching, and a third that I haven't yet named! 
I break up the day into three parts, each of which starts with a 30- to 45-minute demo that introduces three or four new techniques that build on ones previously learned. Then students apply those techniques to their projects, I demo again, and so on . . .
Some students who are traveling a long way home (some as far as the Dominican Republic and Brazil) opt not to put their projects completely together, which is fine by me. Why take the risk of transporting something in 3-D when it's surer to travel safely laid flat?!
Assembled or unassembled, the projects all wow at the end of the day (testament, below)! I'm truly impressed with the magnitude and quality of work done in this relatively compressed time frame. Credit, of course, goes to the students, but also to the team at ISAC - Gretchen, Anne, Molly, and Larry (with whom all of my pre-class planning discussions were had) - and adopted ISAC family member Linda Gayle. Without them rallying to bang out the prep, none of this fabulous work would have been possible. Thank you!
A student's finished vase pieces, pre-assembly.
Linda Gayle's finished vase.
A student's finished wedding cake box pieces.
More gorgeous box pieces by one of the students.
My finished egg, propped while drying.
My finished vase. A bit of a rush job, but I finally got it together!
Until my next cookie journey (Italy in May - woo hoo!), live sweetly!
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