And we were being very careful to identify what everything was in the back of the book. Long after the book was all put together and it was about to go to press, I realized in a panic that I wasn't sure what these things were, whether they actually were parsnips. And I said, 'We could make the book work around this as the main character.' And, no sooner did I get to the photographer and I was looking at these things, than I put one on top of the other, and it was a sea horse.

And, they were the only two that I bought, and I was actually intending to make an elephant head out of one of them because it had this wonderful trunk. But they were kind of pinker than parsnips. SAXTON FREYMANN: In the book One Lonely Sea Horse, I have a little sea horse character as the star of the book, which I made out of two things that I thought were parsnips. TEACHINGBOOKS: Can you give an example of having to do this? I have had the experience of sometimes having to go back to a store and try to reconstruct and figure out what a given thing is. In fact, I'll often ask a cashier what something is, and they don't understand why I'm buying it if I don't know what it is. However, my food education is very dependent on the way they're displayed in the stores. SAXTON FREYMANN: A number of years ago, I was one of those people who would stand in the produce section of the store and have to ask someone, 'Is this dill? Excuse me, what is this?' That doesn't happen much now I've learned to identify most things, even some of the more obscure things. TEACHINGBOOKS: Has creating edible art increased your knowledge of fruit and vegetable varieties over the years? He called me up, and he said, 'Let's do this.' And so, there were a series of photo shoots, and the result was Play with Your Food. Joost is a packager and publisher and producer of creative, innovative books. I think the first was a zucchini, and I used corn kernels to make a mouth that looked spookily real. It sounded like an exciting idea, so I went out, I got some food and I cut some little characters. SAXTON FREYMANN: My relationship with vegetables began when I heard that Joost Elffers was looking for someone to help him develop a book that dealt with cutting food in interesting ways. TEACHINGBOOKS: How did you get started with this edible art form? Saxton Freymann, interviewed in his studio in New York, New York on July 23, 2001. With Saxton Freymann Insights Beyond the Meet-the-Author Movie

Food play by saxton freymann