The Watermelon Code

Another year has rolled by, and another art show gave me the chance to screw around a bit. Last year was the pirate ship, which I couldn't see doing again lest people start to wonder if I was just a one trick pony. For the life of me, though, I couldn't figure out what to do. I spent a few days cooking with a garnishing & fruit carving book sprawled out in front of me, turning the pages when I had a free hand. Nothing really caught my fancy though, and the night before the show I was eating dinner in front of a watermelon... a plain, uncarved melon, just sitting there... mocking me. Anyway, long story short, I realized that I was only thinking of some sort of sculpture type thing, and had completely ignored the obvious. Why whack apart a perfectly good melon?

I thought of Picasso's "The Dream" first for some odd reason, but when I looked up a picture for reference, I scrapped that idea pretty quickly... plus, I thought it might be a better idea to go with something that everyone would know. By eleven that night I was putting on the finishing touches and shaking out my hand cramps from holding onto my little Global bird's beak peeler like grim death.

I figured out that what I like most about this sort of thing is the fear. Halfway through, there's no telling what it'll look like - could be something great, could be a big piece of scratched fruit. It's the same thing with catering, but on a smaller scale. I did an auction last week that was a solid week of prep, and the day of the event was fifteen hours of ten people in constant motion. Halfway through that too, you can never tell exactly what will happen. A hundred things to do, and every time I give someone a job I have to reorganize and re-prioritize the list in my head so that everything can get done when and as it should... and there is always a brief moment of sheer panic about three hours before start time when everything falls to pieces in my head... which, oddly enough, seems to coincide with the time when I usually start getting pissed at everyone who isn't moving fast enough. With a watermelon, there's still the fear, but I always figure if it gets really screwed up, I'll just eat it.

Anyway, without further ado, some crummy pictures of a juicy and delicious Mona Lisa.