Jack-o-lanterns get face lifts with imaginative designs

Kimberley McGee

Friday, Oct. 27, 2000 | 9:42 a.m.

Halloween is centered on traditions -- some simple, some not so much.

For most families, children select the costumes and parents buy bags of candy for trick-or-treaters and often choose a large, orange pumpkin to carve and set out on the porch to be admired as part of the spooky holiday decorations.

Carving triangle eyes and a snaggletoothed grin into the rind has become an art form among carving experts in the kitchens of Strip hotels, and for the average gourd-gouger at home.

Simply put, pumpkin carving is cool.

Chef Kerry Slagle at the Tropicana has 30 years of experience as a food carver. To him, each pumpkin has its own personality and he reveals it slowly, through free-hand carving.

"I start with the eyes and that will set the mood of the pumpkin," Slagle said.

He has nicked his fingers a few times, and broken quite a few paring knives in the gourds' tough skin and thick meat, while working to unveil pumpkins' personalities.

"You have to work with the size and the shape of the pumpkin," Slagle said. "If it has any weird shape or maybe a bulge, you go with it and see what comes out of it."

A 50-pound pumpkin he recently carved for an upcoming Halloween slot tournament at the property had a depression on the lower half of its round bulk.

"It looks like an alien to me so I had fun with it," Slagle said, smoothing his hand over the large, oval eyes and funky nose of the carved Big Mac- variety pumpkin.

Slagel's staff of chefs use intricate patterns from the Pumpkin Masters Inc. company to produce 20-30 elaborately carved pumpkins for Halloween, and a few around Thanksgiving for the Tropicana's parties and buffet decorations.

Although Slagle has a natural carving ability, he started out using patterns to create designs unique to Halloween such as witches, ghosts and black cats. From that he honed his technique for characterizing a pumpkin face and now relies solely on his own talent.

"I don't want to do the patterns, I like the freedom of just carving out a pumpkin freehand," Slagle said.

His staff has gained some confidence in its ability to carve freehand from working with the patterns over the years, he said, and now go home and show off their skills to their neighbors.

"Everybody wants to have a great pumpkin to look at, it's just more fun and adds to the (Halloween) night," Slagle said.

Slagle said he lugs home some of the pumpkins that he has carved at work so his family -- and his envious neighbors -- can enjoy them.

"I go home with these big pumpkins and put them in the yard and I'm the hit of the block, I'm the king," Slagle said. "It's like a competition. You want to have the best pumpkin, the best work."

His assistant, Chef Ann Vongchanglaw, uses the natural hues of gourds, squashes and fruits to create her masterpieces. Pumpkins' orange hues, she says, are ideal for creating an intricate, large centerpiece for fall banquets.

For the pumpkins' thick skin and pliable meat, Vongchanglaw gently scrapes the dull orange skin to reveal the yellowed fruit beneath, and carves a delicate layer of flowers into the exposed bulk.

"I liked flowers when I was a girl and this is a way for me to create them myself," she said.

At the Castaways (formerly the Showboat), Gardemanger (garnish carver) Bernard Pangilinan has perfected his gourd art over the last four years in Las Vegas.

Although he prefers to work with potatoes and other pliable fruits and vegetables, the holidays (especially Halloween and Thanksgiving) give him an opportunity to be eerily imaginative with his craft.

"You can do a lot of things with pumpkins," Pangilinan said. "You can do anything. Anyone can."

Pumpkins offer a large canvas and features. He sees lots of faces in the round, cratered and sometimes wart-strewn skins.

"Devils, vampires, Quasimodo faces, drooping eyes, dragons wrapping around the pumpkin, Chinese characters -- it's all in there," he said. "It just depends on the pumpkin. And my imagination."

John Bardeen, CEO of Pumpkin Masters, Inc., said that pumpkin carving has become a way for families to show off their craftiness.

Bardeen's company, based in Denver, makes pumpkin-carving kits with patterns that create easy-to-make elaborate designs. The company's pumpkins debuted on national television in 1988 on "Monday Night Football" and had a four-year run on the "Roseanne" show.

The kits are popular, he said, because the average person can create a holiday masterpiece out of the gourd that will make trick-or-treaters take a second look and add atmosphere to a party or porch.

Carvers who traditionally cut curves and triangles can follow a simple pattern and get a sense of accomplishment from the pumpkin carving.

"Adults look at it and say, 'I could never do this,' and when they find out that they can it gives them a lot of self-esteem," he said. "It's real, something satisfying and they get to work with their hands."

Bardeen's father, Paul, created the tools that the family patented so that his young children could join in on the fun of creating a face of their own on their Halloween pumpkins.

Instead of dressing up in homemade costumes, Bardeen carried his carved pumpkin from door to door as a young trick-or-treater.

"It seemed to work because I got lots of candy," Bardeen said.

And the idea for his business seems to have worked also. Professionals and consumers picked up on the fancy pumpkin creations.

"It's fun, creative, and it only takes an hour or two to do a pumpkin so anyone can do it," Bardeen said.