a carrot that is a bird and might also be an eggplant

I had always hoped to become an ice cream flavor creator. I was pretty sure that was THE job for me. I spent a lot of time researching ice cream flavors as a child. Every time my parents took me to the ice cream store, I would stare at every single bin of ice cream, concentrating on the colors and the textures and trying to decide which ones had the super-horrifying combination of both actual fruit and nuts all at once. I didn't like to be rushed. I needed this information if I was ever to realize my dream. I don't think my parents understood.

I spent hours at home coming up with winning combinations, mostly involving candy and vanilla ice cream. Nerds and vanilla, chocolate chip and brown sugar vanilla, vanilla with cupcake sprinkles (for the kids,) and for those with a more sophisticated pallet -- vanilla with Ovaltine swirls. The flavor I was most sure would make me famous and very profitable was blue raspberry skittles ice cream. It had the benefit of looking almost exactly like bubble gum ice cream, but without the obvious let down of brittle candy that disintegrates into individual sugar grains after 30 seconds of chewing.

Now that I am all grown up and responsibly NOT picking the cookie dough out of the carton of ice cream,* I realize that no one in their right mind would hire me to think up flavors. But you know who should hire me? Cookie cutter companies like Wilton. I would be super good at creating fun new shapes for each season. Plus, I already have the best outfit picked out for casual Fridays, and I wouldn't even make a big deal about not getting a corner office. I am basically a model employee. I should be their number one girl. I mean, even if they don't want me to come to work in their office and contribute to the witty banter at the water cooler, they should at least send me an email once a quarter so I can veto any cutters that are destined to failure.

For example...this fun cutter. Who let this one get past the brainstorming committee? What am I supposed to do with a cookie that has a stem 2mm wide? Or is this like some kind of unspoken challenge? They've thrown down the gauntlet and now they are sitting back, waiting for the spoils of victory to come rolling in. Although, I'm not exactly sure what those spoils will be. Bragging rights, maybe. Unless there is some kind of office pool, in which case the stakes might be substantially higher. But since they haven't sent a representative to Korea to implore me to work with them...we may never know.

Did anyone else pick this up with the new Easter set this spring? (This was part of the set that someone with a lot of love in their heart sent me a few months ago.) (Just in case you were wondering and felt that this information was somehow vital to our continued online blogging friends relationship.) 

Its actually perfect for making birds. The more I look at it, the more I think that maybe someone just mixed up the top end with the bottom and put the feathers on the beak. See, look --

1. Cut out your cookie. Don't actually move it though. At all. Or it will break and the designers at Wilton will win.
2. Cut between the stem and the foliage. Set the foliage aside.
3. Trim the beak so it is pointed.
4. Curve the back end of the bird around something that is small and...umm...round. You could actually leave it like this and have yourself a lovely bird just the way it is. Or...
5. Using the tip of the carrot cutter, cut a notch into the foliage.
6. Press it into the tail end of the bird. Ta da!! Feathers!

For the record, my husband thought I was making eggplant cookies. So, that's an option as well. (Can eggplants be yellow?)


* possibly not a true statement.