Fake and Bake - Day 13 Fake spaghetti is holding up! Plus fake carrots, fake salad and fake bread. Tasty!

To quote Elaine from Seinfeld, "Fake. Fake. Fake." 

Rob, our super stage manager thought it was real at arm's length, as did some other folks...including my cats. SUCCESS! I waited 2 weeks to see how it was holding up before letting you all know that my below instructions worked out. I would like to have lightened up the tomato sauce by one color level and made it a little more fluid, (plus change some other small details that bug me), but it will totally read as real food. The spaghetti could have been one shade lighter to look more cooked, but the character sits with a cold plate of food while waiting for her daughter to come eat, so it'll work. Overall, pleased with it! My sweetie liked it...and asked when I was really going to cook. My reply? I told him to enjoy the happy mood derived from this form of creative cooking...that it's better than a home cooked meal mood!" Lol!!! :) 

THEATER PROPS: Fake and Bake Time Again! Day 1 Fake spaghetti, salad, carrots and bread! Yum!

So, I'm creating fake food again for Main Street Theater - fab theater in Houston! The production is called THIS which opens on April 7th. Get your tickets at http://www.mainstreettheater.com

I have discovered that I thoroughly enjoy creating fake food to use as props! It's absolutely stimulating to try different techniques to make the most believable food that functions best for the actors, director and scene. It's crazy fun looking at conventional items and picturing it as something totally different---and in this case, something stage "edible"... in theory!! 

I'm working on making spaghetti...but using REAL COOKED spaghetti in this first test. I think everyone has used yarn, string, etc... but I wanted to see if slightly cooked spaghetti would work. 

Steps:

1) Cooked spaghetti (approx 5 minutes so it would expand/be flexible).

2) Once dry, I coated it in Mod Podge. (Mod Podge worked in the summer camp days of making masterpieces out of uncooked pasta... so why not try it with slightly cooked pasta?) 

3) Crumpled up brown lunch sacks to make small meatballs and stuck those in the pasta. 

4) Mixed in little chunks of wood to replicate cut tomatoes and also woodshavings for texture and adhesiveness. 

5) Once Mod Podge dried, I blobbed hot glue in pools to make it appear sauce-like, let it cool, and then painted it red. 

6) Added bits of peppercorns and sprinkled on wood shavings to look like parmesan cheese. 

Question - Will it mold? Will it shrink? Will it sTink? Will it be a siren call to ants, roaches and tiny nameless rodents? Lol! Looks great right now, but we shall see if it molds or lasts for 4 weeks! Fingers crossed! If this doesn't work, I'm going to try some ideas my fantastic prop friends, Jodi Bob and Megan suggested.

Btw, I made a fake salad, glued on a piece of foam "bread", and then created baby carrots out of orange modeling clay ---to go with a few real carrots the actor has to eat.  Pic is a work in progress. Still need to add salad and carrot touches and glaze the sauce...but here it is as of now. Hope the spaghetti doesn't shrink!!!