Gallery Feature Friday: Pastillage Island

Stats:

• Composition – Pastillage. Chefs are Marzipan.
• Weight – Approximately 10 pounds. 
• Length – 20 inches
• Width – 12 inches
• Height – 8 inches
• Production Time – Approximately 10-15 hours spread out over 5 days. 
• Notes – This was a piece I did during my apprenticeship. I had just taken a two day workshop instructed by visiting Pastry Chef Robert Oppeneder. During his work shop, participants made a simple island scene out of chocolate to take home with them. The Chef I was apprenticing under saw this piece, and told me to make it bigger, better, and out of pastillage, so here it is. The backdrop is meant to be a silhouette of Diamond Head crater on the island of Oahu. I found a basic outline in an ad in the paper. I tried to make each of the little chefs look different. The odd thing is that the first time I put it on display, many people accused me of making them look like the chef instructors from the culinary program. I had not intended to do so, but perhapse I ended up doing it on some subliminal level.

Song stuck in my head at the time of this post: Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding