Monday, September 5, 2011

Fruit and Veg Carving-first class

I was so happy to finally make it back to classes at Grossmont College. I thought I'd share some of my experiences.

This is from the first carving class.   I figured that this would be useful for general dexterity, and may give me cake decorating ideas too.  It was a lot of fun, although it can be very frustrating, as Chef Joe is very skilled and makes the whole thing look super easy! 
Here he is cutting a chrysanthemum out of a turnip.

We were then taught a simple technique of cutting small flowers out of carrots.  I found this infuriating, hopefully I'll get the hang of it with some practice.  I can tell we'll be eating a lot of carrots this week!
 Chef then showed us a technique with a potato where you carve a straight line, then a diagonal to meet it, resulting in a striped pattern.  This looks to be one of the techniques which will be very important.
 Thankfully I found this technique a little easier than the carrot one, here's my potato!
 Chef then showed off a bit with some more ornate carving of a melon.
 The flowers were all combined together to form a bouquet.
 Here is the chef's handiwork
And our team's work.  I thought it came out very nicely, and it was lucky for me that this was a team project, so my pathetic looking carrots were hidden amongst some much prettier ones!

6 comments:

caninecologne said...

Very cool Jenny! I've never seen carrot flowers like that before! Your potato looks quite nice as well!

My dad and his friends (all Filipino Navy cooks from back in the 60's) used to do stuff like this. Flowers made from carrots, radishes and fireworks looking sprays from greeen onion stalks. Their garnishes made the food at parties look more fun to eat!

Mary Platis said...

Next time I would love to attend! This is incredibly beautiful!
Mary

Jen said...

That bouquet is gorgeous! Reminds me of poppies, my favorite :)

Admin said...

This bouquet is beautiful! It reminds me of poppies, my favorite:)

www.funzpop.blogspot.com

Grand Place Chocoshave said...

There is also a great class through the Grossmont Adult School too taught by Laura Lynn. The class is called "cruise ship style fruit carving". Wow what a fun class! More info on the Grossmont Adult School website "adultschool.guhsd.net" or at her website "sandiegofruitcarving.com"

Grand Place Chocoshave said...

There is also a great class through the Grossmont Adult School too taught by Laura Lynn. The class is called "cruise ship style fruit carving". Wow what a fun class! More info on the Grossmont Adult School website "adultschool.guhsd.net" or at her website "sandiegofruitcarving.com"