Monday, October 31, 2011

The 31 Days of Halloween: Day 28


Halloween is the best time of the year. It's a wonderfully indulgent time, where your inner ghoul is given societal license to be put on display. To celebrate it to it's wicked fullest, the Midnight Cheese will be posting every day in October with excellent ways to enjoy the season. Whether it's horror films, video games, books or activities, check back every day for some new Halloween fun.

Carving Turnips


In keeping with earlier Halloween tradition, as detailed here in our previous day's post, I'm going to hollow out and carve a turnip. If, like me, you've never even seen a turnip before, they're located in the produce section of your grocery store and resemble a fist sized radish, though they're purple and light brown colored. You want a larger rounded one to make for easier carving.

The first thing to do is use a knife to cut the bottom so that it's flat and can sit upright. The cut a flat "lid" off of the top. You'll notice that a turnip is not like a pumpkin inside, in fact it looks more like an onion. For that reason you'll want to carefully use a pairing knife to hollow it out instead of a spoon. Once you've done that, you want to carve a simple traditional pumpkin face onto it. Nothing to complicated since the turnip doesn't have as hardy a surface as a pumpkin and because it's a much smaller canvas.

Place a tea light inside and display your new Jack 'o Lantern with the others. Be prepared to answer questions about as folks might never have seen this specific Halloween tradition before!

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