Students find inspiration in salads

DEERFIELD, Ill. — In the world of art at Chicagoland Jewish High School salads can contain ice cream, candy bars and cookies.

Students in Marla Snyder's art program at CJHS were told to create a salad they would like to eat and draw it on a plate. One of the teens put some of her favorite sweets in the recipe.

Those drawings were turned into table cloths which will hang in the cafeteria the rest of the school year after an opening reception March 31, when parents and the rest of the school community had the opportunity to view the creations.

"I told them to design a salad they would like to eat," said Snyder, of Lake Forest. "I also told them to make them different."

After selecting ingredients and designing a plate, the young artists drew their design on a square.

Snyder said a computer program was then used to duplicate the drawing and convert them into a table cloth large enough to cover a cafeteria table.
While most students selected fruits and vegetables for their salad of choice, Elinor Sigler, a freshman from Northbrook, took Snyder's lack of creative restriction literally and designed a salad of ice cream, candy bars and cookies.

"I thought about things I like to eat," Sigler said. "I thought it was cool we could make a salad that did not have to be realistic."

Viktor Cin of Chicago decided to stick to what he called healthy eating. He not only chose foods for the colors they would offer from an artistic standpoint, but gave his mother, Nancy Cin, some ideas how to get Viktor eating more fruits and vegetables at home.

Cin's salad consisted of tomatoes, lettuce and apples. The apples were cut open depicting the color of the fruit rather than the outside of the produce. He said he was thinking about the final artistic product.

"I chose the lettuce because I wanted a green background on the plate," Cin said. "There is one tomato for the red and the apple pieces give a nice pattern. I wanted to make it healthy but different."

"I like it," Nancy Cin added. "I would not have thought to put apples in a salad at home."

She hinted the family may now have a new ingredient.