The Tasteful Art of Fruit Carving

I was banquet serving as a temp for a wedding this weekend. It was a charming afternoon wedding at the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio. Since the wedding started at noon, the bride chose to have a brunch with omlette and waffle stations, as well as many pastries and other delicious foods. (And plenty of mimosas!)

Placed on the fruit buffet table was this creation:

I was enchanted as were many guests. I was compelled to ask the chef about it. The chef informed me that he commissioned culinary students at the Bradford Culinary School to create the fruit scupture for the event, catered by "A Catered Event". (Clever name.) What a perfect centerpiece for an event at a botanical garden! I know I'm a nerd about all things "party," but I really could not stop looking at this intricate design. It's amazing what you can do with a couple melons and radishes. Sad that it will only last a couple days!

There's really no reason someone couldn't create this for a party at their own home. (I mean, you just need a boatload of free time and a willingness to waste fruit.) I looked into the art of fruit carving when I got home and found out that it is pretty popular around the world, especially in Thailand where it is a national art form. There, the fruit carving tradition dates back 700 years. I looked at a bunch of videos on youtube and this one CLICK THIS LINK (from some guy from Italy named Anthony) shows a watermelon being carved into a flower.

I have not attempted it yet, but it doesn't look too impossible to do. Anthony's design is less complicated than many others and might be a good start for a beginner. Grazie mille, Anthony! If anyone tries this, let me know.

DIY Flower Arrangements

Lilac, Dahlia, Violet, Aster, Tea Rose, Iris... All would look (and smell) GORGEOUS displayed on my dining room table!

Sure, you can buy a centerpiece display of flowers already perfectly arranged in a vase, but it's really not difficult to arrange your own floral centerpiece if you want to save a bit of money and give the bouquet your own personal touch.

I think it's really fun to pick out different stems of flowers from the local farmers' market in colors that match my tablecloth. (I am easily thrilled.) With spring coming, maybe you will have some daffodils and tulips to cut from your own garden very soon. Or, sometimes, a nice guest will bring a wrapped bouquet of flowers as a hostess gift. (We love those guests, don't we?) So, rather than just jam the flowers in a vase willy-nilly, here's a video tutorial on flower arranging that I found helpful. The lady in the video (Alexandra Lyons) explains everything pretty clearly. (Sorry they make you watch an ad before the video. I guess some people want to get paid.)

Click here for the video on flower arranging from videojug.com

She has some tips I found helpful:
1) Cut the stem of every flower at least an inch to make the flowers last longer.
2) Cut off all the leaves that would be underwater to prevent bacteria from growing.
3) Don't put all of one kind of flower together.

Here are some tips I've gleaned over the years that she didn't mention, but I've found helpful to make a beautiful bouquet. It makes it seem like you really know what you are doing!

1) It you don't have quite enough flower stems to fill your vase, use scotch tape to create a grid across the top of your vase. (Put some pieces of tape vertically across the top of the vase, and cross them horizontally with more pieces of tape.) It will keep the stems separated and make the bouquet look fuller and more orderly. The stems will stand upright instead of drooping over.

2) Cut some stems an inch or so shorter than other stems. Put the tallest flowers in the middle of the vase, and the shorter stems as a circle around the tallest flowers. It shouldn't look like a couple tall flowers poking out above a circle a short flowers - you need to cut them so the size difference is gradual. This creates a nice rounded shape for the centerpiece. This type of arrangement works in almost any type of vase.




Here is a bouquet from ftd.com that illustrates what I mean by cutting the flowers around the sides shorter than the stems in the middle.

Progressive Party - House Pub Crawl

You may have heard of Progressive Dinner Parties – this is a variation on that. A Progressive Dinner Party is when each course of a meal is served at a different home. Kind of like a traveling potluck dinner. On Wikipedia, I read about a more complicated Progressive Party where the guests also change from house to house, so you get to party with a whole new crowd at each stop. The overly complicated directions (and pretty diagrams!) for that are at this link. Good luck explaining that one in an invitation!

My friends threw a Progressive Party/House Pub Crawl that the group still talks about today. I wanted to impart this idea to you in hopes that you will have an equally epic night.

Once upon a time, in a college town not far away, there were four friends who lived within a two block radius of each other. Each friend was given the responsibility to come up with a Drink and a Food for the progressive party that represented the country/place of his/her choice. Hosts and guests would then go from house to house together to sample the food and drink.

About twenty guests converged on the first house. There, the host provided Bailey’s shots and green jello. This was supposed to be representative of Ireland. The guests appreciated that instead of going with the obvious food choices of corned beef or potatoes, the host chose to go with green jello, the national dish of the Emerald Isle.

After eating their fill of gelatin, the mob of guests walked to the second house. The host at the location provided Sangria and Tortilla Español so the guests could explore the tastes of Spain. She also “entertained” the guests with an album of photos taken during her recent Study Abroad experience in Toledo, Spain and played some Spanish pop music.

The third host home provided some much appreciated food from the tropics. Teriyaki chicken and pineapple skewers and piña coladas were served - and by this time the tipsy guests were willing to laugh at jokes about getting lai’ed. (Drunken guests may or may not have also devoured an entire box of Samoa Girl Scout cookies that was inadvertently placed in plain sight on top of the refrigerator.)

No one needed to drink or eat any more at this point, but motivated guests gamely traipsed to the fourth and final party house. There they courageously imbibed Hurricanes and Jambalaya made by the host, a native of New Orleans. After the Hurricanes, no one can actually recall what else happened that night. Legend has it that the guests walked to a local bar to sober up and tried to remember all the places they had been to that evening.

Green jello - synonymous with Irish Pride

If you are over the age of 24, you may want to tweak this party idea so your guests don’t die of alcohol poisoning. (Our livers seemed stronger back then, didn’t they?) But I think the basic concept still works.

1. Have a theme for the party to keep it cohesive. Each host provides food from their home state or ancestral home. Each host has to serve a vegetable that they’ve grown in the garden. Each host has to pair their favorite wine with an appetizer. Each host picks an awesome scene from a movie to watch, then serves a coordinating beverage and food. (“Mystic Pizza”, anyone? Anyone?)

2. The hosts must live near to each other. Either walking distance or short driving distance. (Designated drivers!)

3. Limit the number of host houses to three or four. Three is probably better. (See above cautionary tale.)

4. Each host can invite a few guests. Decide ahead of time how many guests that will be so each host knows how much food and drink to prepare. It’s a great way for guests and hosts to meet new people!

5. Since guests are only going to be at each house for less than an hour, you don’t need to plan on table seating for every guest. Thus, appetizer type foods work better than foods that you need to sit down to eat with a knife and fork.

6. As a host, choose food that can be prepared ahead of time to reduce the wait time when everyone shows up at your house. The idea is that each party stop flows into the next. Plus, you will be at the previous homes, enjoying yourself, and won’t be at home to do the last minute things you normally would before a party. Have all the plates and cups arranged and ready on the table. Something in a crock pot or that can be served cold are great choices.