While most children are told not to play with their food, some Foothills youth are showing off their creativity with edible sculptures. The junior cooking category at the 111th Priddis & Millarville Fair saw everything from pies, cookies, loaves and cakes to unique creations carved and built straight out of the garden. Kian Klemencic earned the Award of Excellence for his piece – a wizard whose body was made of a perfectly-bent zucchini, with corn husks twisted into his hat and sunflower leaves making up the long cloak, and a single stem of barley for a long beard hanging down the front. “I was brainstorming about what to do this year because last year I did an eagle and I kind of wanted to do something where there was more elements to it,” said Klemencic. “So I chose the wizard because it has a lot of elements to it. We have a garden at my farm and we have corn and sunflowers, and I thought they would be perfect.” His farm is about 15km north of the Millarville Racetrack, where the annual fair takes place. This isn’t the first time Klemencic has taken away the big prize. Last year, his eagle also won the Award of Excellence. “It was a zucchini for the body too, and it was way bigger,” he said. “There was a huge onion for its head, and I used peas for its eyes and a carrot for its beak, and lettuce leaves I think for the wings, and beans for its talons.” He plans on carrying on his tradition next year, though he’s not sure yet what he’ll be making. The inspiration will depend on what the family’s garden looks like next year, he said. Klemencic’s interest in creating art out of food has caught on. His cousin, Orion Warawa of Calgary, also entered a creative piece and took first place in his age group. Warawa chose a large beet and added string bean hair and eyes made of tomatoes for the lids and small apples for the eyeballs. He carved a toothy grin into the beet flesh and added a julienned carrot sticking out, like a toothpick. “I named it Sam Iogo because that’s a name I’ve been joking around with my friends,” said Warawa, who had never entered the contest before. He said he’ll likely try his hand at carving and sculpting vegetables for the 112th fair. “I mean, why not, right?” he said. “It was fun.” The pair of creative cousins were encouraged to enter by their grandmother, Millarville-area resident Louise Patterson Bruns. Together, their family had 84 entries from cooking to flower arranging, vegetables, crafts and writing samples, and roosters. Klemencic and Warawa each entered homemade pies as well – rhubarb raspberry and rhubarb blueberry, respectively. In addition, Warawa had written a poem his grandmother called “wonderful.” “I’ve been telling them about the tradition,” said Patterson Bruns. “My dad and his sister and brother and my grandma were entering here 100 years ago, so it’s a long tradition in our family.” Jay Stewart, a judge for the fair, said she was “very impressed” with Klemencic’s wizard entry. “I really loved the creativity of the curve on the hat, and I love the eyes and the big smile, the barley down the front and the cloak down the back,” said Stewart. “I thought it was exceptional creativity.” She said Klemencic is a great example of the young people who exhibit at the fair each year. They have the full support of their parents and families and aren’t afraid to try new things, she said. “They’ve got parents who are really attentive, and I would say their creativity and their abilities in school have been really exceptionally nurtured,” said Stewart. “It really makes such a difference to the kind of people they create. “Some day these guys are going to be great husbands.”
