Tips and Tricks - Chapter 3 Continued

Ok, I went to the store today.  I picked up a whole lot of lovely vegetables and fruits and am planning to make a lot of salads after I finish photographing body parts.

Of all times for this to happen, the fancy cauliflower went on sale and I needed the white.  So I bypassed the beautiful gold and purple varieties and went for dull cream colored.  But Grummy, you ask, why does the color matter? Well, I wanted to show how easy it is to make brains.  Then, on the way home, I realized that purple or gold brains would work too.  Ah well, I’ll get the pretty stuff next time.

So ... brains.  As mentioned, you can use cauliflower.  One of the benefits of cauliflower is that it can be crunchy brains or mushy brains, or anywhere in between brains.  Sometimes that matters.  Crunchy brains and dip might be just the appetizer you’re looking for. 

 

 

Another great brain food (get it?) is pasta.  Just about any shape or form of pasta cooked and drained and left in the colander to cool will look like a brain, but elbow macaroni really works well.  If you have a small cup sized strainer, that would make great individual brains.  If you only have larger strainers, drain the pasta and dish up in small serving bowls to cool, or serve a large family style brain.  Remember, you can always drizzle all sorts of goo on your brain.  Melted cheese makes a good brain goo, marinara too. 

 

 

And sometimes you find hidden thoughts in brains.  If I asked the boys to make their own brains, I’d make sure to have a lot of thinly sliced vegetables and cheese and a lot of cookie cutters so they could cut ideas and stuff them into their brains.  I know the middle one would stuff an awful lot of cars and trucks in his brain.  The oldest would probably cut out some books and maybe a beaker or two (he loves Science).  The youngest wouldn’t bother cutting anything out. It’s food. It all belongs in his brain just as it is. 

 

 

Before we move on to other body parts, let’s talk about caricatures.  Caricatures take a prominent feature and magnify it so that it represents the person being caricatured.  This works for people, things, animals and so forth.  It’s finding the “essence” or what is outstanding about something and using that to represent it.  For example, when we talked about Rapunzel, we focused on her hair.  When we talk about a truck, it could be the wheels.  The idea is to think about the object or person or character from a child’s point of view.  What sticks out to them?  What would be the first thing they say to describe that character?   

When you’re making body parts, it might be a small detail that pulls it all together.  Not all Grandparents were born with equal veggie carving skills or dough sculpting talents, so focus on traits that are outstanding and remember the kids will believe whatever you say if you say it with authority.  Of course, Mathilda that is exactly what happens to the Spider when she tries to walk too soon after painting her toenails.

 

 Consider if you want to make a hand, use one of your grandchildren as a model.  Cut out dough or pie crust around their hand.  Or just make fingers.  If you make fingers, you can roll the dough and then add a sliced almond as a fingernail. 

 

 

How about eyes?  Grapes are a great eye.  You can peel grapes and fill a bowl full of them (my brothers did this to me when I was little) or you can cut them in half if you need them to display as rounded or sliced if you want them flat.  Consider using stuffed olives for eyes.  Again, the profile can be changed simply by halving or slicing the olive or grape.  The long root part of a radish becomes a lovely alien eye stalk.  Cut a cross in the end of a tomato and give it a good squeeze, and you have the worst possible case of pink eye ever.

 

 

One of my favorite ways of portraying birds is by creating pie crust beaks.  You can shape them to be long and pointy, bent, squashed, whatever you want it to look like.  Remember to cut the little nostril holes in the dough too.  That makes it more recognizable as a beak.  You can then place the cooked beaks on the plate strategically to just look like a bird, or you can add them to cherry tomatoes, oranges, kiwis, etc. to make full birds.

 

 

Noses can be done just like beaks.  You can attache them to heads made out of fruit or potatoes, or even out of more dough.  Remember in cooking No, David, I made David heads out of little rolls.  I could have added David noses using pieces of pie crust. 

 

One of the fixatives I like to use is ricotta cheese.  Cream cheese also works, but it’s a bit stiffer than ricotta and not as easy to dab on.  I try not to use toothpicks or inedible attachments.  I figure I want the boys to try everything on the plate, I don’t want to be pointing to certain pieces and saying, oh, except don’t eat that.  I actually made dowels out of mini carrots one time.  Who knows, I might even do some dovetailing on my cucumber slices.  Just try things out.  Don’t wait for the story; play with your own food. 

So these are just some of my ideas for Body Parts.  As I think of more, you’ll either see them incorporated into a meal for a story or in a Tips and Tricks Chapter.   The next time I need to do a Tips and Tricks, I think I’ll concentrate on accessories and clothing.  Mittens and scarves come in handy for winter time stories.  And as the boys told me, I should’ve added socks to their Bath Soup.

Tips and Tricks - Chapter 2

The important thing to remember is that no matter how hard you try, it’s unlikely that you’ll end up with a realistic recreation of whatever it is you’re trying to represent.  And if you do end up with a lifelike whatever, you’ve probably spent too much time making it.  Time you could spend laughing with the kids.

 I try to “suggest” or give a hint of whatever it is.  For example, if I wanted to represent Rapunzel, I’d focus on the hair.  If you ask someone to describe Rapunzel, they’ll mention the hair first.  Maybe they’ll talk about the tower and how the Prince used her long hair to climb up the tower.  So the best representation of Rapunzel I could make would be her hair. 

 I’d then think about the meal, overall.  What do I want to include nutritionally?  What leftovers do I have that I can use?  What’s in my pantry? 

For Rapunzel, I’d most likely focus on vegetables.  Why was Rapunzel cloistered in the tower to begin with?  Well, her mother craved a certain salad that could only be made with leaves that grew in the Witch’s garden.  So I’d start with a great big salad.  I’d add things to suggest the story.  Then I’d add things to make it a meal.

 So I’d start by planning a salad of lettuce or spinach or other salad greens.  I’d also most likely take the opportunity to include some greens that I like, such as arugula, kale, and radicchio, since I usually have them on hand. If you think back to the story, the Prince falls from the tower and is blinded by some thorns.  Mixed spring greens have some lettucy things that look like they could be a bed of thorns.  I’d definitely make a trip to the store for that.  (I’d wait until I know what else I might need before I actually make that trip) 

What do I want to do for the hair? There are a number of things I could use (see my list below), but I want to make it so that the hair is braided and I want to use it to corral the salad on the plate. So I’m going to use bread. Bread dough is easy to make and there are a million recipes out there, but the trick I’m going to tell you is the quickest way to do the braid that I can think of. Use one of the canned pizza doughs like Pillsbury’s. I used the thin crust so it wouldn’t be too much bread. 

 

 

First, line a baking sheet with parchment and form a ring with the braid on the parchment.I turn a plate upside down on the parchment and draw an outline in pencil, then I flip the parchment over and use that pencil ring that’s showing through from the other side as a guide for making my braid ring.

 

 

Cut the dough log into (number of kids + 1) pieces. You may need more than one package of dough depending on how many kids there are and how big the salad plate is. Then cut each of those into three pieces. Roll each piece into a long “snake”. Then braid three together.  

 

 

 

Repeat this for each child’s dinner. Make an extra in case one doesn’t turn out, or in case someone is really hungry. You can get fancy and brush the braids with egg wash (an egg and some water beaten) to make it shiny. The ring needs to be a tiny bit smaller than the size of your plate, or at least the size of your salad.   

Next, I’d figure out a way to incorporate the rest of the items.  I’m going to do the bed of thorns, maybe some combs or brushes.  I could cut those shapes out of cheese.  How about some sword shapes?  A Prince usually carries a sword.  I could cut those from some carrots, long radishes, or even just use green beans.  Okay, the salad is coming along nicely. 

While the braids are baking, you can make your combs/brushes and swords.  Don’t forget cheese.  It’s easy to decorate with cheese shapes.  You can add some bits of chicken or tuna to the salad as well.  Use your imagination and remember that they don’t have to look exactly like whatever they only have to suggest whatever.

 

I’d dress the salad with a very light vinaigrette made out of mostly herbs, rice wine vinegar and grapeseed oil. 

 

 

I mentioned a list of items that could work for hair.  These are just some suggestions, and I know I’ll figure out more over time:

·         Green: spinach/basil/lettuce chiffonade, Sprouts
·         Red: finely grated carrot (the longer the stroke on the grater, the longer the hair)
·         Blond(e):  finely grated peel of a summer (yellow) squash, flesh from spaghetti squash, pasta
·         Brown: finely grated potato peel (could also be used for red, blonde or purple hair), whole wheat pasta

So that’s how I build a menu for our stories.  Read the story and step away from it.  Then think of the things that you remember most about the story.  Those are the best points to include.  I usually add some component that the boys can “build” or add on their own.  That way they have a stake in the meal and are more likely to eat it.  I don’t worry too much about mess, because we have a ritual clean up afterward.  The eldest uses the broom and dustpan.  The middle one uses a damp cloth. And the youngest points out where the messes are. 

 

Tips and Tricks - Chapter 3 will be about body parts.