Listen up kiddos! Today is the day you finally get to break all the rules, cast aside tradition, and really get your hands into the meat of my topic, today… you get to PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD.

Food art has been around for centuries. Since as long as there has been someone to present a beautiful dish to, there has been someone who was in charge of making the food look pretty. Kings and queens and ancient emperors didn’t eat gruel out of a bowl you know! Humans quickly learned that even the most tasteless food was made more palatable with the proper presentation, ie sticking an apple into that roasted pigs mouth, or arranging a small bit of fruit and cheese on a bed of lettuce. If you go to Google.com, you can type in two words, “Food Art”, click the images category, and then hit search. You wiill be absolutely amazed at what people can do with a pairing knife and a watermelon, or what happens when they use pudding as paint, or how even a charred steak can be beautiful!

So today grab some fruit and veggies, some whipped cream, some toothpicks and some sprinkles. Make a fruit face, or a cantaloupe pyramid, complete with broccoli trees and green pea rock walls. Decorate your plate with a scene from one of your favorite coloring books, but instead of crayons or colored pencils use a variety of different colored fruit to fill in the lines! Build a REAL waffle house, cut out little doors and windows, and decorate it with whipped cream,  syrup, strawberry jam, or chocolate sauce. Make a mashed potato igloo, or carve your own unique creation using that “perfect-for-art” potato substance.

For a fabulous picnic lunch for you and a million friends cook up a hand ful of hot dogs and cut them into 5 little even pieces. Use pretzel sticks to make hot-dog people, then add lettuce leaf clothing, and pretty soon you’ve got a whole hot-dog pretzel army!

If you want to incorporate art into your breakfast make a big batch of pancake batter and use a turkey baster to make shapes and letters entirely out of pancakes. Heat a big griddle or wide skillet, and spray it with a little bit of cooking spray. Fill the baster with some batter, then slowly squeeze the rubber ball and drag the tip to make a big batch of pancakes that spell out your name! Make little pancake sheep, or a scary pancake monster.

If you really only want traditional circular pancakes you can even make them pretty with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and other toppings. Use the same methods that they use as restaurants like IHOP and Denny’s to make a chocolate chip smiley face, or fruit and whipped cream.

Don’t let anyone hold you  back today, but try not to make a mess.

For more inspiration check out this post from Web Urbanist. or this really cool blog post from Coool – Stuff or search for things like Food Carving on Google.com.

Happy Playing!