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…

Thailand flag made with red chili, shredded coconut and blue swimmer crab

I came across an original and clever food art idea that was showcased at the Sydney International Food Festival in Australia. To celebrate and promote the city of Sydney as a global dining destination, an advertising agency in Australia called WHYBIN\TBWA came up with the eye catching food art concept of arranging the traditional foods of different countries into national flags.

Feast your eyes on these clever food art flags from the Sydney Food Festival – a feast for the eyes, the taste continue reading…

Food Art is becoming an increasingly popular because of popular television cooking shows and because food naturally appeals to both our eyes and our taste buds! Well, today I want to share with you a lovely ocean food art creation by a student, Gianna Goldy. Gianna’s “under the sea” theme, with all of its fresh vegetables, makes me think of an underwater garden.

I was delighted to receive her wonderful photos and the following message in my e-mail:

Gianna Goldy's Underwater Garden Food Art made from carved vegetables

Nita, here are some pictures of an “Under The Sea” food carving I did for a project in my Culinary Arts class. This is the first time I ever attempted food carving. My inspiration came from what I saw while diving at the Virgin Islands. I was quite pleased at my attempt at food carving which led me to research food carving on the internet, which lead me to your website. I have ordered 14 of you’re DVD’s and several knife and carving utensils. Thank you for your teachings! I am learning a lot. Gianna Goldy”  continue reading…

Water Festival activities in Thailand to welcome the New year

The streets of Thailand will be splashing with fun, music and excitement for the Water Festival (also known as the Songkran Festival) between April 13^th to 15^th.

The Thai people are well known for their intricate and beautiful fruit carving. During the Songkran Festival  fruit carvings are prepared to display and share as you will see further down in this article. But first, let me show you why the Songkran festival is also called the Water Festival.

Anyone who is outside in Thailand during this time is a fair target for drive-by water shootings, water balloons and garden hoses. But not to worry, the Water Festival activities are all in good fun to welcome the Thai New Year. In fact, the Water Festival is a welcome relief from the hot weather in Thailand during April.

Many other countries in Asia also celebrate a New Year in April and regard this time as a period of transition to welcome positive changes, while clearing out negative elements from the past. Many of us may associate this idea with Spring season, such as spring cleaning, which doesn’t sound as fun as a massive street water fight! So I’d like to invite you on another armchair adventure to mystical Thailand for the Water Festival. continue reading…

Recently, I stumbled upon an amazing food art that has been practiced in China for centuries. It’s a form of fruit carving you could say, but it involves carving the pit of fruits. I’ve never heard of it before but was amazed at how beautiful and intricate it is.

China’s Incredible Miniature Food Art

This miniature folk food art is called “Heidao” in Chinese and refers to both fruit pit and walnut carving. Remember as you look at these that the photos that most of them are larger than life size. These are small fruit pits!

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Cantaloupe bunny by Jean Geraldo Silva

In a recent post, I wrote about Melon Bunny carvings. Since then I have received several more photos of creative carved melon bunnies made my students and blog readers. So, here they are, just in time for Easter.

Maybe their photos will give you some new ideas for your own melon bunny carvings.

Creative and Whimsical Melon Bunny Carvings

I love how some readers have taken the melon bunny idea and ran with it! The melon bunny carving that I teach in my video lesson is great for serving fruit, but you can also use the melon bunny theme as a centerpiece for decorating purposes. (You can see the continue reading…

Photographer Carl Kleiner makes Fun Food Art using artichoke, garlic and tomato

Happy April Fools Day.  Here is some silly and fun food art that might put a smile on your face! I was inspired to do this when I received an e-mail from Bob Moroch, which gave me a chuckle.

By the way, if you are not familiar with April Fools Day, it is celebrated on the 1^st of every April in Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Australia, and a few other countries. It is a day when people play all kinds of jokes and pranks on each other – all in good fun, of course! Since I can’t play a prank on you, I thought I’d make you laugh with fun food art photos instead!

Anyway, Bob Moroch’s e-mail made me think of April Fools Day. Here is Bob’s message telling me how he liked my free lesson on how to make a radish bouquet: continue reading…

When my son was growing up, it was a challenge to get him to eat more fruits and vegetables. I found that if I presented the food in a fun and attractive way, he would sometimes eat even more than I hoped he would! If you’re a parent or grandparent with a little one who’s a bit of a fussy eater, I’m sure you can relate and I bet you have your own ideas for fun ways of arranging fruits and vegetables for kids. I hope I can show you some new ideas in this post and share some photos with you that your children in your life will enjoy too!

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Carrot Worm with Onion Flower by Nita

The other day I published an article about whimsical fruit and vegetable carvings. Well, here are some more.

These photos with fun fruit and vegetable carvings might bring out the inner kid in you.

Several of my readers and students have sent some fun photos to me. These cute fruit and vegetable carvings make me smile so, I thought you might enjoy them, too.

These Fruit and Vegetable Carvings Will Make You Smile

Here is a really charming carved watermelon baby carriage complete with the baby that one of my students, Silas Souza made. Sweet isn’t it?

Silas did a great job with this one. You might want to swipe this idea to use if continue reading…

A cute melon bunny fruit bowl for your Spring time Celebration

I love to celebrate Spring by making one of my easiest fruit carvings – a melon bunny fruit basket. This is my favorite time of year because everything is fresh and blooming and it really does feel like a new beginning.

Certain fruits start to come in season so it’s a great time to enjoy them and have a little fun by serving them in a melon bunny fruit bowl. Plus, kids will go wild for these melon bunny bowls and the fruit will disappear in no time! continue reading…

Onion Souvenir made for Bern Onion Festival

Have you ever heard of the Onion Festival in Bern, Switzerland? Well, a reader of my blog recently introduced me to the Bern Onion Festival when she sent me photos of some really cute and fun onion art from this event!

I just love learning new things from my readers, especially about unique food art ideas. I thought these photos were great because I had never thought of using or decorating onions in this way. I wanted to share the photos with you because these cute and clever onion figurines from the Bern Onion Festival are sure to make you smile. continue reading…

Are you looking for creative and fun vegetable activities for kids?

Here is a fun idea that is great for getting children in on the fun of creating with vegetables. This will be an activity where you can actually encourage them to play with their food. And, it’s great for small children, too because no sharp knives are required.

Vegetable Activities Get Kids Involved

For one of these vegetable activities, start out be cutting up various vegetables into a variety of shapes. Slice zucchinis into wheel shapes. Carrots can be cut in various lengths. continue reading…

Eggplant and Cauliflower Poodle by Sheetal Patel

Today, I’d like to show you photos of whimsical, wacky and fun vegetable and fruit carvings. Why? Well, March is National Nutrition Month so, naturally, I think vegetables and fruits should be in the spotlight!

I thought it would be fun to recognize March Nutrition Month by showing the playful side of vegetable and fruit carvings.

If you’ve got kids in your life who are reluctant to eat their fruits and vegetables, this ideas might be fun for them.

I will be showing you some wacky vegetable and fruit carvings that have been sent to me from unknown sources, and then I’ll show you a few really cute carvings and arrangements by my very creative readers/customers. Whether you’ve got kids or not, these carvings are fun. Enjoy! continue reading…

Ok I can’t resist one more ice carving and snow festival post. One of my well traveled readers, Sandra Taylor, mentioned that she lived in Sapporo Japan, a city that is well known for their annual Snow Festival. I started looking at photos of the Sapporo Snow Festival and was again amazed enough to want to share these photos with you.

A carved ice palace at the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan

The last few months have been winter season in many countries and there were a number of ice and snow festival celebrations going on.

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In my last post, a guest blogger wrote about how she saw an ice carving expert in action during her vacation. I thought this was interesting because many chefs who do fruit and vegetable carving also do ice carving. I’ve never tried it myself but the technique and the product are certainly beautiful and fascinating.

One of the World’s Largest Ice Carving Festivals

Colorfully Lit Walls of Ice at Ice Festival in Harbin, China

After seeing Jana’s post on ice carving, I thought it would be fun to share with you some truly amazing ice carving sculptures at what is probably THE largest and most impressive ice carving event in the world.

So I’d like to take you with me on a mini vacation to China for the Ice and Snow Festival. Our stop is in the city of Harbin in Northeast China. I hope you don’t mind the cold because winter temperatures here can dip into minus 35 degrees Celsius.  It’s not hard to see why Harbin has made ice carving and snow sculptures an important cultural event! continue reading…

Okay, it’s not exactly snowing or icy here in California, but I wanted to share some ice carving pictures with you from one of my readers, Jana Phung.

The Art of Ice Carving

Did you know that many chefs who do fruit carving also do ice carving?

I haven’t tried ice carving myself, so I can’t promise to have video lessons on this anytime soon! But you can see what it involves by reading Jana’s guest post below. continue reading…

Whenever I need a creative gift idea, or just something unique to bring to a dinner, I can always be sure that vegetable edible arrangements will be a big hit. Not only are they colorful and attractive to look at, depending on the veggies used, they’re fun to eat for both kids and grown-ups.

While some Vegetable edible arrangements are purely decorative, they can  also serve as a healthy alternative at potlucks and brunches, where there are already plenty of rich foods to indulge in.

People are usually so impressed by homemade vegetable edible arrangements because they think, “Wow, that must have been hard to make!”

The truth is they are actually quite easy to make once you learn how. continue reading…

Have you ever heard of a Lemon Festival in France called “Fete Du Citron”?

Well, you don’t have to be a citrus lover to appreciate the spectacular lemon and orange sculptures displayed at the annual Lemon Festival held in the city of Menton in Southern France.

This unique festival was initially brought to my attention by one of my readers, Panayiota Thoma. I was immediately intrigued by the amazing and massive structures that were built from citrus fruits!

I was recently reminded of the Lemon Festival again by another reader, Anetas Lekas. Tthe Lemon Festival is taking place right now, between February 17th and March 7th, in Menton. I wish I could go there!

So I’d like to invite you along with me to France, if only for a few minutes in our minds! continue reading…

Today, I’d like to share a clever vegetable art idea created by one of my readers, Cindy Halferty. This will be especially interesting if you have children in your life.

Cindy Halferty’s charming Vegetable Garden House

You may have built and decorated a Gingerbread House with your kids during Christmas laced with cookies, icing sugar and candy. Well, here’s a healthy twist to this old holiday favorite: We’ll call it  a Vegetable Garden House.

Isn’t is quaint and inviting? and completely edible, too. Look at all the vibrant colors of this edible Garden House, lent from the deep red tomato, pink watermelon, bright green broccoli and cucumber and purple radish, just to name a few. There are so many details in this vegetable art creation by Cindy and I invite you to take a closer look! continue reading…

A carved pineapple eagle served with dinner on Jesse's cruise through Halong Bay, Vietnam

Today I’d like to invite you to go on a trip to Vietnam to see some exotic fruit carvings.

My nephew Jesse and his fiancee were recently traveled to Vietnam and had some pictures of amazing fruit carvings to show me.

Although I’m sure that seeing fruit carvings wasn’t the main high point of their trip, I’m glad they thought of me!

Actually, it was the 3 day “junk boat” tour through Halong Bay that was the real highlight.

Take a look at their photos and go on a mini-vacation without having to leave your home! continue reading…