Carving the perfect pumpkin

Another event that I cannot forget. I am the Halloween queen, the scream queen. There's actually going to be a Halloween special airing tonight at 7.30 that I make an appearance in. It's hosted by our very own Amari Craft because she has been going all over the place, central Florida, around Tampa Bay to check out all the spooky experiences. And she's going to showcase all of it for you. That's going to air tonight and over the weekend. But what are we doing with our pumpkins? I have seen so many creative ideas. I have a blank canvas of a pumpkin at home, and I need some ideas on what to do with it. So what we're going to do right now is we are going to bring in a professional. Joining us this morning is Adam Beerton, a nationally recognized food sculptor and Food Network champion. We already asked him to carve Rays logo. That would have been too much. But Adam, this is incredible what you have here. How are you doing? Happy almost Halloween. Yes, thank you for having me, guys. Happy almost Halloween. And this is my grind time, my busy season. It's the last few days of October, and I've been carving pumpkins nonstop. Wow, so tell me about your life as a professional pumpkin carver. How did that happen? Walk me through how you got to this incredible point in your life. So I went to art school for high school, so I was always a visual artist. I fell in love with the creativity of Halloween at a very young age, and I just never stopped. I moved to New York City, I got onto a show called Halloween Wars, and I won that show. And that's kind of what solidified me as a professional pumpkin carver, and I've been carving pumpkins ever since. Wow, so walk me through, I know you have some incredible examples here, but you also have so many incredible videos. When you're talking about the detail that goes into some of your work, how long does something like what you're doing right now in this video, how long does that typically take? So this style of sculptural pumpkin where I'm actually not carving all the way through the wall of the pumpkin and lighting it up like your typical jack-o'-lantern, I can spend anywhere from four to 12 hours on a single pumpkin. Wow, wow. Is there a certain place, does a certain pumpkin or size, does size and shape matter? I know that's a big thing when you go to the pumpkin patch, you're looking for the right shape. Yes, for sure. I always like to enforce that, that we want to play our design into the shape and size of the pumpkin rather than force the design into a pumpkin that might not fit. So the sculptural style that you see, I'm looking for something that's a little bit taller, that's maybe heavy for its weight and will have a thicker wall that I can actually sculpt into. Wow. But as you can see here, I have a whole bunch of different examples where little baby pumpkins and the use of seeds or potatoes and carrots are great ways to enhance your design. Yeah, I mean, walk me through what people need to know. Obviously, not everyone can do this. So when you're working with people who want to create this, but maybe are not as well crafted as you, walking through what we need to know. My job as the professional carver is to kind of inspire some creativity and give you guys some tips and tricks. So I have some tools here that you probably have at home and are great for pumpkin carving. And I have this little example here that I've kind of mapped out a traditional jack-o'-lantern. You can see that I've cut a hole in the bottom rather than cutting the hole in the top, which is maybe what you're used to. But I think preserving the stems character is very important for the pumpkin. And leaving that stem intact will actually extend the overall life of the pumpkin. So there's a couple of ways, but these little dry erase markers are really great because they can mark up your pumpkin, but then they wipe right off. And what I like to tell people is, you wanna stay away from really big format knives. Your big kitchen knife is probably the worst idea. You want it to go with something smaller like this. These are two of my favorite knives. These are little paring knives. You're probably used to something like this from your pumpkin carving tool kit, which obviously will work, but you can see, I'm gonna cut a couple different shapes here. This little serrated edge you can kind of see will tear up that surface versus a paring knife will give you a nice clean cut. So I like to use these small format knives and scooping your pumpkin really clean is very important. You wanna thin out that wall and it's just gonna make carving your pumpkin that much easier. Wow, you make that look so easy. Well, lots of practice. But there's so many fun ways to carve pumpkins. I think that people are a little scared or timid to try something new, but pumpkin carving is experimental and it's meant to be fun. And at the end of the day, we have to realize that it's just a big piece of fruit and it's eventually gonna rot. So get out there, have fun, and carve something cool. Definitely. What would you say, is it a question that a lot of people may make a certain mistake when they want to go and carve a pumpkin? What are your best tips and tricks? Well, I don't want people to be scared of making a mistake. Some of my mistakes have actually turned into some of my best carving. So it's a removable material. So once you remove that shape or that piece, you can't put it back on. But the slight difference between the placement of the eyes and the mouth can completely change the character. Yeah. So for instance, I've cut this shape out of here, but adjusting that shape is very easy and you can kind of develop that character as you go. And there's so many fun other ideas, like you probably have a melon baller in your kitchen drawer and these are really cool because you can just cut little eyes out of here and even turn these around and make them little polka dots. So that's cool. Vegetable peelers are really great. Sometimes they're a little too small for the size of your pumpkin. They work a little bit better on smaller ones. But some of that sculptural stuff you've seen, I'm using ceramic tools. So this is like a big ceramic tool and it's It's really great for peeling that pumpkin skin. So again, you just wanna experiment and get some inspiration, check out my page and just get out there and have some fun. Now I know that you just mentioned pumpkins are fruit, they obviously don't last forever. Is there anything people can do to make their creations last a little bit longer? Sure, there's a couple tricks, nothing is guaranteed. It really starts with the freshness of your pumpkin. So if you can get out to the pumpkin patch and find something that's recently picked, and usually the indicator is these nice green stems. If you see a green stem, it usually means it's nice and fresh, and that's just automatically going to extend its life. And we wanna treat it like a piece of fruit. You wouldn't take a bite out of your apple and put it on your front porch and expect it to last a couple weeks. So what I actually do is I wrap all my pumpkins in saran wrap and I put them in a fridge or in a cool dark space when they're not on display and that is just gonna ultimately make them last longer. I love it. I also have this little lemon juice water solution that I use and I spray all my pumpkins down, keeps it moist and kind of slows that mold growth. Okay, very smart, Adam, I love this so much for people who are watching and they want more of you, they want more inspiration, how can they follow you? It's very easy. It's just my name, Adam Bearden. I'm on Instagram, TikTok. You can check out my website, adambearden.com. I've linked to a lot of all my favorite tools. I've got some tutorials and templates. Endless inspiration for you guys. This isn't Chris. These pictures, Adam, are amazing. Do you have a favorite? Do you have a favorite that you've made? My God, I love all the pumpkins. So last Last year I was able to do a almost 2,500 pound pumpkin, it was like 10 feet tall. It was this big monster and it was eating up some of these little characters. I did that with the New York Botanical Garden and that was a pretty cool car. Wow, my gosh, I could talk to you forever. This has been amazing. Adam Bearden, thank you so much for joining us here on Fox Tampa Bay Live with this incredible inspiration. I need to go home and up my game. I have a pumpkin that we got this weekend. I haven't gotten a chance to do anything with it and now I'm feeling inspired thanks to you. Well, I can't wait to see what you come up with. Thanks, Adam. Take care and happy Halloween. Happy Halloween, guys.