Eighteen years ago, in 1999, Chef Nicholas published the first edition of Potpourri of Flowers. That book contained fifteen beautiful, life-sized gumpaste flowers. This book was to be the first of a trilogy of textbooks Chef Nicholas authored on gumpaste flowers. In 2014, New Trends in Sugar Flowers was released, and just last year in 2016, Spring & Summer Flowers in Gumpaste was released as the final book of the trilogy. While all three of these books have been extremely popular as instructional guides for making botanically accurate sugar flowers, Potpourri of Flowers has always stood out among the three.

Today is graduation day for the 14 students in Chef Nicholas' PME Master Certification class! It has been 13 days of hard work AND fun! We had students from Nigeria, Curaçao, Bahamas, Argentina, and all over the United States. It will be so hard to say goodbye to all of our new friends, but I know that all of these wonderful students are going home having learned amazing skills to share with their own clients. Thanks to all of our PME students, we are going to miss you!

Normally I do photo blogs after our Open House events, but I thought I could share some of the photos we have taken over the last two weeks! I hope it might inspire you to take a class with us- from a quick 2-day class or up to our 13-day master class! (and yes, I share the winner of last week's blog at the bottom).

Gary Chapman's NEW Book!

Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s Chef Nicholas' books were being published by Merehurst Publishing. The Marketing Director was Gary Chapman, and he was responsible for introducing the company, and its list of cake decorating books, to the USA. Gary and Chef Nicholas attended their first American cake show, an ICES convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, together. The next show was in Atlanta, and they had a proper booth with reception and demos by Chef Nicholas and others. The rest, as they say, is history! Well, for Chef Nicholas it was history! Gary the Marketing Director discovered his own interest in cake decorating, and thus began his own career as a cake artist!

Chef Nicholas has TWO NEW CLASSES this summer! HOORAY! These two classes are being offered for the first time; some of the flowers have been taught by Chef Nicholas years ago in discontinued classes, and are back by popular demand by our wonderful students, and some flowers are being taught for the first time ever! Let's not stand on pretense, I'll tell you all about them right now!

Nicholas Lodge's Newest Book!

I am so excited to share some wonderful news with our wonderful readers! This past weekend, at the 39th annual ICES convention in New Mexico, Chef Nicholas released his brand new book, New Trends in Sugar Flowers. This is the second book of a trilogy; the first, Potpourri of Flowers, was first published in 1999 and re-released in 2013.