Happy Halloween from Me and Veggiewise!

Here’s my original post with details of how I made him!

Veggiewise floats!

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Jen’s Roasted Apple Spice Smoothie

You don’t like pumpkin spice? I *guess* you can use those words together. How about some lovely fall apples then? Roasting them brings out extra natural sweetness, so you don’t even have to think about adding sweetener!

Stephen King’s IT. Veggiewise the Clown. Terrifying produce.

I’m getting lots of emails asking for details of how I made Veggiewise the Clown. Because IT part 2 just came out! I can’t even wait to see it! My Veggiewise is the old-school Tim Curry version. I need to do a Bill Skarsgård version. That would be terrifying produce. I updated the post with veggie details. Happy Halloween season, everybody!

Veggiewise the Clown.

Jen’s Kitchen Sink Popcorn and Embracing Epic Fails

It was Christmas morning. There was a few inches of snow blanketing everything and big fluffy flakes were still falling from the sky. There was a fire blazing in the fireplace. <Okay, ours is a gas fireplace with a switch to flip on the wall next to the mantle, so it’s not exactly a production.> Christmas music was blasting. The dining table was decked out to the nines. I’d made fabulously fragrant monkey bread, and Jacques Pépin’s quiche, and gotten those onto the table along with nice strong coffee and kicked-up mimosas. I just had to finish up my strawberry Santas. I’d taken a shortcut and bought whipped cream in a can. It comes with its own dispenser. Genius, right?!

Veggiewise Floats

We read Stephen King’s It for bookclub, and I was inspired by Pennywise the Clown to make a nice little produce sculpture to take with. Veggiewise the Clown. I cracked up when my friends were really hesitant to sample my little crudite display. He is a little bit more off-putting than our treats of Halloweens past…..

Edit: September 2019. I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking for a little more detail about Veggiewise, so I thought I’d add it in here. 😀

Veggiewise’s components

Overall face – Cauliflower florets
Hair – Grape tomatoes and irregular slices of sweet red bell pepper
Framing the top of his head – Irregular slices of green bell pepper
Ruffled collar – Green zucchini and yellow squash ribbons create with a vegetable peeler. 
His clown top – Yellow squash, halved the long way and then sliced into half moons
His clown top poofball – Baby carrots standing upright in a happy little bouquet
Eyebrows – Kalamata olives
Eyes – Radishes with green olive irises, and Kalamata olive trimmings and green pepper triangles
Nose – Radish and Kalamata olives
Mouth – The bottom of a sweet red bell pepper. It’s much easier to sculp if you choose a really fat-bottomed pepper. They make the produce world go round. The teeth are trimmed almond slivers over a Kalamata olive background. 

For the dip, I made float out of Kalamata olive slices. They float really well. My dip is ranch, but since this is the old-school Pennywise, it would be heeelarious to make a Curry dip for Tim Curry. I really need to make the new Bill Skarsgård version. That would be some mighty terrifying produce. 

Tools. I am a knife enthusiast. Here’s my collection. I have two very favorite knives for produce sculpture. They are wonderfully comfortable to work with for long periods of time and cut just so well. They are both full tang, which means that the blade runs the full length of the handle, so you don’t have to worry about it ever separating. 

Wusthof Trident Classic Ikon 7” Santoku Knife

Wusthof Classic Ikon 3-1/2-Inch Paring Knife

Okay, I am personally addicted to epic fails. Here’s one that someone sent me that cracked me up to no end. 

And here’s a link to my own epic fail… and some flippin’ delicious popcorn if you need a treat right now. Jen’s defeated Santas. Happy Halloween, everybody!