Ruben Olano - professional fruit carver for Disneyland Resorts

Fruit carvings are a wonderful addition to a meal for any special event. Themed fruit carvings can serve as a decorative table display or centerpiece, or can be used to dress up a fruit or hors d’oeuvres platter. 

Today, I want to share with you some photos from a reader, Ruben Olano, who used to work as a professional fruit decorator for Disneyland Resorts and Hotels. His fruit carvings were often displayed at special event buffets at the Disneyland hotels. I’m sure Ruben’s fruit carvings got many “oooohs” and “aahhhs” from the patrons dining the hotels. Take a look at some of Ruben’s fruit carvings – they may spark some ideas for your own centerpiece for a special event. 

If you’re new to fruit and vegetable carving, don’t worry, read on to find out how I can help you get started on making your own fruit carvings and edible arrangements for your next special event. continue reading…

Do you love Chocolate Covered Strawberries? They are super easy to make.

Decorated Chocolate Covered Strawberries in Edible Arrangement

Here are several short videos in this article that will show you  exactly how to make chocolate covered strawberries. You’ll also see how you can easily decorate them and how you can use them in pretty and delicious chocolate covered strawberry edible arrangements. And if you have leftover chocolate, you can easily and quickly make some chocolate bark candy and other chocolate covered goodies, too.

You may find these yummy edible arrangements ideas useful for  any upcoming potluck, or party. Chocolate Covered Strawberries arranged into bouquets make welcome hostess gifts, too. For an anniversary or birthday, you could make one strawberry for each continue reading…

Valentines day will be here soon and so I want to share with you some ideas for Valentines Day.

Beet salad with goat cheese with sliced beets cut into the shape of hearts for Valentines Day

In past blog posts, I’ve shown a ideas for Valentines Day that you can use to dress up your Valentines Day dinner. You can make roses carved from root vegetable like beets, turnips, daikon or golden beets. You can dress up your table with pretty napkins folded into heart shapes. You can make delicious fresh roasted beet salad. Or,you can take a shortcut by making a your salad with canned sliced beets cut into the shapes of hearts. Another idea for valentines Day – you can make quick tomato roses to garnish your plates.

In this article you will find links to recipes, photos and videos that continue reading…

Here is another amazing food art that I stumbled across today. It is Chinese Sugar Painting. I’ had never heard of it before but look how beautiful this is.

Roadside Treat Food Art

Chinese Sugar painting sold as a roadside treat

I’ll bet you have to work quickly to have the sugar at just the right temperature.

I find it interesting how an art that requires such skill is sold as a simple roadside treat. continue reading…

Have you ever seen the amazing food landscapes created and photographed by British photographer, Carl Warner?

Winter village made of cookies and confections - see larger image of same further in this article.

This amazing food artist was brought to my attention this week by one of my customer/students, M. Choquette.

British Photographer Creates Food Landscapes
that are a Feast for the Eyes.

Carl Warner, 45, first draws his ideas, then buys the produce and spends days creating food landscapes using a whole bunch of fresh ingredients…plus some pins and superglue.

His latest book, Food Landscapes, features many food art seascapes as well as scenes from around the world such as a wild west wagon scene complete with avocado cowboys. Take a look at Carl’s fantastic photos. continue reading…

Heita with one of his carved vegetable musical instruments

Playable Carved Vegetable Musical Instruments! No Kidding!

This morning, I came across these videos of a fellow playing vegetable musical instruments or various types. It’s amazing. I’ve carved lots of vegetables but this is the first time I’ve seen vegetables carved into playable musical instruments.

This first video will show you several instruments made from vegetables. The next 3 videos will show you how to make your own vegetable musical instruments as well as an ocarina from an egg. I like the egg ocarina because it has a nice clear sound. Following the egg demonstration there are 2 videos showing  two ways to make musical instruments from carrots. continue reading…

Here is a quick and easy way to make really impressive and beautiful red chili flower.

Actually, I’m going to show you 2 styles of carved chili pepper flowers. You can see how I used red chili pepper flowers in a vegetable bouquet centerpiece that I made for Thanksgiving.

The red jalapeno peppers are a good choice for this chili flower garnish because they curl nicely. You can use the same carving techniques with green jalapenos and yellow peppers but those won’t curl quite the way that red chili peppers do.

Easy Carved Chili Flower Technique
Adds WOW to your food presentation. continue reading…

Flowers carved from diakon using carrot flower carving design - carved by Nita Gill

One of the cool things about learning vegetable carving techniques like the carrot flowers taught in Amazing Carving with Jimmy Zhang is that once you learn to carve carrot flowers, you can also use other vegetables to carve a variety of different looking vegetable flowers. continue reading…

Are you looking for ideas to make fruit and vegetable centerpieces for Christmas or other winter holidays?

Here is a short video showing you several different elements you can put together to make beautiful Christmas centerpieces. Arrangements like these will certainly get ooohs and aaahs at your Christmas or holiday party.

You’ll surprise and delight your guests continue reading…

At this time of year, you might be looking for some great ideas for Thanksgiving centerpieces. In this article, I’ve compiled some of the ideas for fall and Thanksgiving centerpieces that I have posted in previous years. I hope that these photos and 2 short video ideas give you some inspiration for your own Thanksgiving centerpieces this year.

Carved Vegetable and Fruit Thanksgiving Centerpieces

Last year, I carved a few different centerpieces including one that looked like a turkey. It was carved from kabocha squash. 

You can take a look at more continue reading…

It’s been a very busy fall this year with introducing Ray Villafane’s 3D Pumpkin Carving Tutorials on DVD and with my carving at the White House. I hope that you had a very Happy Halloween.

People Learn how to Carve Expressive Pumpkins
in the style of  Ray Villafane

Lots of my customer/students have been having fun learning how to carve pumpkins with Ray Villafane’s Pumpkin Carving DVD. It is really not as difficult as it seems to carve pumpkins with expressive 3D faces.

At first it seems totally daunting. But when Ray Villafane breaks in down into a series of easy to follow steps, anyone can do it. Really! Well. anyone who wants to do it.

I have had so many student/customers send me emails telling me how pleased they are with their first attempts at carving faces after watching Ray Villafane‘s DVD tutorials.

One student told me that he thought carving faces would be too difficult. He though that he had to be an artist to sculpt pumpkin faces. But when he saw how Ray Villafane breaks it down into steps he thought, Wow, maybe I dont’ have to be an artist. He told me that he was so pleased with their pumpkin carvings and how they cna’t wait till next year to show off thier pumpkins at Halloween.

Take a look at photos of pumpkins that some people have carved after watching the DVD lessons by Ray Villanfane . continue reading…

Ray Villafane’s 3-D Pumpkin Class was a blast. Here a some photos of the finished and unfinished pumpkin carvings done during the class.

You can learn how to carve3-D pumpkins like these in Ray’s new DVD Tutorials.

continue reading…

I recently posted an article about carved pumpkin lanterns made to celebrate Halloween. In it, I show a bunch of carved pumpkins with movie and cartoon themes. One thing that these carved pumpkin lanterns all have in common is that they use varying thickness of the pumpkin to create varying shades of light and dark.

In order to help you carve your own carved pumpkin lanterns, I’ve made a free video to illustrate the concept of carving varying thicknesses to make differing shades of light and dark. Take a look and you will see what I mean. You will find it useful the next time you carve a pumpkin lantern. And the same concept works well when you carve lanterns from melons.

Take a look. continue reading…

Want to see some truly amazing and inspiring pumpkin carving?

Pumpkin Carving of David Letterman by Ray Villafane

Tonight the Finale of  Food Network’s “Halloween Wars” airs. It’s on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 9pm ET/PT

Watch it and you will see Ray Villafane in action carving his extreme pumpkins.

If you miss that, you can see Ray carve his extreme 3-D pumpkins on the following shows.
October 17, 2011 at 9:30 pm ET, the Weather Channel will air a segment featuring Ray called Pumpkinpalooza.
 
And you can see Ray on Martha Stewart Live on the Hallmark Channel at 10 am on October 18th and 19th, 2011
LIVE in person Class With Food Network Champion Ray Villafane.

You can learn from the master Ray Villafane himself – LIVE, in person. continue reading…

 Have you ever seen how pretty Armenian cucumbers are? Do you know when is a cucumber really a melon? Find out in the short video below. continue reading…

Nita's Swan Watermelon Carving Won the 2nd Place Award

I recently participated in a watermelon carving competition for which I carved a Watermelon Swan that won the second place award. I posted lots of photos of all the other winners and participants in an earlier blog post about the watermelon carving competition.

As a result of seeing the photos of my carved watermelon swan, I got a lot a requests asking for more details and information about my watermelon swan. So I made up this short video to show you more details.

Details of Carved Watermelon Swan

If you are an intermediate or advanced carver, this may give you some ideas for creating your own watermelon swan. If you are a beginner, perhaps you will be inspired to learn more. Take a look. continue reading…

 In celebration of the USA’s Independence Day, here is an idea for a red and white striped 4th of July watermelon bowl that is perfect for the 4th of July or any time.

4th of July Watermelon Bowl - free video lesson

Free Full Length Video Lesson continue reading…

Today, I want to share with you some photos and an instructional video from Thai master carver and teacher, Wan Hertz.

Thailand is one of the countries best known for it’s beautiful fruit carvings.  And, Wan Hertz carves some of the finest Thai fruit carving that I have seen. The detail and intricacy of her carvings are amazing. Take a look at this one. Can you believe that she did this in only 3 hours? Look how complex the detail is! continue reading…

Are you looking for ideas for making fruit arrangements?

Today, I received a very nice email from student /customer Summer Dawn. She also sent some photos of her recent fruit arrangements that are very pretty. I thought that you might enjoy seeing them to give you ideas for your own fruit arrangements. continue reading…

Spring is here. And with it, the blooming of spring flowers.

Easy Vegetable Carving Calla Lilies are perfect for spring celebrations

Calla Lilies, also known as Easter Lilies are beautiful and elegant springtime flowers. Did you know that you can easily create your own Easter Lilies with vegetable carving? And it’s pretty easy. continue reading…