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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2004)
CHOW! SUMMER 2004 FOOD PLAY CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION CAN TURN FOOD INTO ART. BY MINDY INMAN F writers: do you just wanna rock? WRITE MUSIC REVIEWS FOR EUGENE WEEKLY! We are now accepting submissions of CD reviews by local writers. What’s in it for you? You’ll just do it for the glory . . . (These are unpaid reviews, but you’ll get to see your work in print!) What’s in it for us? We’ll boost our music coverage and get rockin’ reviews from the experts (that would be YOU) who know what’s really happening in the music world. Reviews should be between 100 and 200 words, on any musical genre, and should be emailed to cal@eugeneweekly.com under the subject heading: “Local CD Review.” Please include complete informa- tion about the CD, including band name, album name, year and record label, contact information so we can reach you, as well as a short bio about yourself. For additional guidelines and information, contact Ben at Eugene Weekly: 484-0519, Ext. 26 12 JULY 15, 2004 CHOW! or most, food is a means of nourish- ment. There are good tasting foods, and bad tasting foods, depending on your personal preference. Yet for others, food contains possibilities that many miss. Children for example, often seem to refuse to see the meals placed before them as any- thing other than a medium that begs to be created into art. For them, clouds are fluffy bunnies and mashed potatoes are volcanoes. The book Play With Your Food encour- ages not only children but people of all ages to reconnect with their childlike inno- cence and artistic visions. After reading this book, food is no longer one-dimen- sional, and your eyes will be opened to the fact that vegetables, fruits, and foods of all types hold the possibility within them to be enjoyed in more ways than one. A green pepper becomes a camel with peppercorns for eyes, a lemon becomes the face of a baby bear with folded flaps of rind for ears, and an upside down banana peal becomes an octopus. Play With Your Food shows us how, with small manipulations, food’s other dimensions can be uncovered, just for the fun and creativity of it. Produce shopping will never be the same again. I know that after reading this book my weekly produce runs are now filled with aisles of artistic vegetable possibilities star- ing back at me. I can’t walk past the water- melons without thinking of how it makes a great turtle shell, or how apple stems make great legs for a string bean grasshopper. This book inspires us to open our imagina- tions to the individual characteristics of each piece of produce — an oddity, a growth or any distinct feature — and allow our youth- ful creativity to take over. The techniques discussed in the book are easy and imagina- tive. Using only simple household items, one can create an entire zoo of food animals. In addition to colorful pictures of example creations, the book guides you through the steps in fashioning such creatures. There is a section for suggestions on how to create effective ears, eyes, mouths and legs that, added to a simple item of produce, can cre- ate an expressive individual. Every year in October millions of Americans can be found perusing super- markets and crop fields, searching for that one special pumpkin. We take them home with us and, armed with our playful imagi- nations, we unleash the hidden personalities within the squash. Some become witches with a crooked stem as a nose, some have cutout smiles or grimaces with triangle eyes — we are inspired every year to see food through different eyes, and it is this point of view that the book Play With Your Food encourages us to adopt, not just once a year, but any and all days of the week. Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder, and with a newly enhanced per- ception and creativity from this book, our everyday food no longer has to be monot- onous; adults and children alike can share the beauty of nature’s creations. May we lay on our backs and stare at the clouds until we see the fluffy bunnies, and may we play with our food like children at the din- ner table. ew www.eugeneweekly.com
