The Art of The Order of Odd-Fish: Edible Art

Belgian Prankster beer
Beer by Meg Rutledge and Matt Mayes
Label by Gabe Patti

It’s a beer based on the villain of The Order of Odd-Fish! When I first met Matt and Meg at a reading, and they told me they planned to brew a beer inspired by the Belgian Prankster, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. But . . . would the beer be any good? Turns out it’s LUDICROUSLY good.

Matt describes it as “a crazy Belgian pale ale (think Belgian + American IPA). Piloncillo sugar gives a nice hat tip to our Latino neighborhood [Humboldt Park], and helps balance out the generous amount of hops . . . This beer is not for the faint of heart—much like the Prankster! It’s strong with lots of hop-bite, which will mellow over time. Meg and I were buzzed after sharing a bottle . . . We infused the grains while Brilliant Pebbles was on the stereo, and then placed a copy of Odd-Fish on top of them while they soaked for an hour, trying our best to capture the essence of the Prankster via osmosis. (We really needed some chanting in there too.) Later in the day, we had our first boil-over ever, foam and hops everywhere—definitely something the Prankster would do. In spite of the mess, we were quite pleased.”

I was quite pleased myself! And check out the wild label. The Belgian Prankster looks deliriously chipper in his dirty fur coat, green ski-goggles, and rawhide diaper. Eagle-eyed readers will notice his name is spelled out in balloons. And those are the national colors of Belgium in the background! Great work, Gabe!

This beer has the distinction of being the only beer ever featured in the School Library Journal. (Thanks, Betsy Bird!) My original post about the beer is here, and Matt blogs about it here.

Fish Vomiting Lodge Cake
by Elise Carlson

What an amazing cake! (In the words of my editor, “simultaneously the most impressive and least appetizing cake I’ve ever seen.”) Marvel at the mad bug-eyes of the fish as it flops from a delicious ocean onto a scrumptious beach! Behold the torrents of delectable slime coming out of its tasty mouth (and that glistening tongue!) as it spits up a mouth-watering Odd-Fish lodge! This cake won the “Most Creative” prize in the Third Annual University of Florida’s Edible Book Contest. I’m sure nothing else came close. Elise is not only a baker of strange cakes, but also a photographer and artist. Check out her website for more goodness. Here’s my original posting about the cake.

Gingerbread Ruby Palace
by Freya & Theo Trefonides and Georgia & August Greenberg

Around Christmas 2008, Freya, Theo, Georgia and August ingeniously constructed a Lily Larouche-style ruby palace from gingerbread and populated it with Odd-Fish characters! In the following closeups we can see Sefino fulminating about the latest Eldritch Snitch, Aunt Lily dancing on the roof, Jo wandering the garden, and Colonel Korsakov skulking under the eaves. Great idea! (Unfortunately, I didn’t get to taste much of it, because I didn’t want to ruin their creation.) Read the original post here.

Order of Odd-Fish Cake
by Lorna Cavanaugh

My aunt Lorna painstakingly hand-decorated this cake to look like the cover of The Order of Odd-Fish for the book release party in the summer of 2008. What an amazing job! I must say I was kind of sad when we finally had to cut it so that guests could actually eat the cake. I wanted the cake to stay this way forever! Thanks, aunt Lorna, for this beautiful and thoughtful idea. (And the cake was delicious, too.)

Ostrich Cake
by Avon High School (Rochester, NY)

Six Odd-Fish armored ostriches are hiding their heads in the Rice-Krispy-treat sand . . . possibly because they’re afraid of their next duels in the Dome of Doom? (Well, they were right to be afraid, because they delicious.) Ingenious and tasty!

Fish Cake
by Avon High School (Rochester, NY)

The happy-go-lucky smile on the face of this fish, and the careful cursive lettering in the frosting, were impressive touches. I also liked how the marshmallows kind of resemble fish scales all around the border. The sprinkles all around the sides were a festive touch too. And it was delicious!