Downers Grove Winter Ice Fest 2022 with Nadeau's Ice Sculptures

Another wonderful year at Downers Grove Ice Fest with Nadeau's Ice Sculptures... with a whole new perspective. After three years of taking part in this amazing event, this year was by far the most rewarding. From apprentice carver in 2020, freezer worker and ice carver in 2021, and production manager and lead ice carver in 2022, I've grown to love this festival in a whole new way. This year, I had a small team of new carvers helping produce the largest Downers Grove festival we've produced so far, at 58 street sculptures. We capped it off with two days of live carving. Altogether, a great day if you ask me!

This is from the very first live carving I did at Downers Grove in 2020. I remember being so nervous, having a million questions, being freezing cold and exhausted, not knowing if I was doing it right, hearing the crowds' excitement, having burning cold hands and ghost vibrations in my arms from practicing the days leading up to the festival, not realizing that I was actually starting a whole new career for myself at that moment, all while having a really great time!

In 2021, with more confidence I was able to produce more detailed pieces. One of my favorite moments of carving is the last picture here, where I literally look like a piece of frosted mini wheat breakfast cereal covered in snow with icicles everywhere. Even under all of the slush, snow, icicles, and layers and layers of carving gear, you can see my big involuntary smile (at least with my eyes!).

This year, I had one of our apprentice carvers with me, and after having a banger of a carving season and another ice festival to prepare for on the same day, I carved an ice cream cone and then spent the rest of the time excitedly answering questions for the crowd about the process of ice carving and how our ice is made while Jack carved the other two blocks. It was a learning experience to see how my answers to the questions from the crowd have completely changed. When I first started doing this job, I wouldn't have thought that I would eventually be talking in detail about the downsides of battery operated electric tools to someone in the crowd. How's that for girl power, am I right? Overall, the best year so far.

The most exciting part for me was going around town on Friday and seeing all of our sculptures on display for the first time. The quantity is truly amazing. There's nothing quite like walking down a two block span of Downtown Downers and seeing over 40 sculptures alone all down the sidewalks.

Complete with an ice bench, hand carved pieces, CNC pieces, and even full color pieces, it was truly a sight to see.

The fun in doing this festival every year is the variety. There's not really another time that we get to do this many different pieces all at once.

Of course, a few favorites developed for sure. I've started a tradition of awarding some of the sculptures with an imaginary award that earned a special place in my heart. Bragging rights are all that count anyway, after all!

This lion taught me a lesson in proportions and dimensional bases. Look at that rock! Intentionally placed, proportional, and with the major details like the overall shape and the fur texture on point, this piece is a king in my book! I award you, sir lion, king of furry detail!

Namaste, yoga girl ice sculpture! What a fun piece this was to create. Being a fellow yogi myself, I felt personally inspired by this request and dove into digitally designing this one as a layered dimensional snow etch piece. With the yoga girl being etched on the front plate and the tree branches and roots being etched on the back plate, the look of the piece actually changes depending on the angle of light and vantage point. Most elegant piece goes to this one, the use of simplicity shined through for sure.

Of course, the sun can be brutal to our ice carvings if it shines directly on them, so Guaranteed Rate, I award you most resilient this year. In the sunny weather we had, you didn't stand a chance, but you were still enjoyed by many!

This sun and moon piece shined brighter than I expected. For me, this was a real lesson in choosing the right vectors for a design and the right drill bits to tool them impactfully. V bit for the win, on this one. I'm talking to you, Mr. moon man.

Ahhh, Peet's Coffee. One of my favorite pieces for a different reason, it's one of the hardest ones I've made. There's something about carving a geometric shape with a curved bevel that can be extremely tricky. Overall, it came out realistic looking enough to make you want a cup of coffee even more than the chilly weather!

There's something extremely satisfying about designing a piece that brings you back to your childhood. When I started thinking about what a Pikachu ice carving was going to be, my mind ran wild! As I started digging for vectors, my creativity started to take over. Memories of playing with Pokemon cards with the neighbors when I was a kid start coming back to me as I'm searching for the perfect design. For me, this piece earns best CNC piece and also best nostalgic piece. Pika Pika... Pikachuuuuu!

With so many ice sculptures on display, it's hard to not give awards to every single one of them. Each one of them with their own personality, style, and design elements.

Being the first year that I've had apprentice carvers helping produce carvings at Nadeau's, I think its necessary to shine a light on this beautiful harp sculpture. Nalia, you really did a great job on this one! Absolutely gorgeous.

This carousel horse wins the best puzzle of a piece this year, for sure. This is a modernized build of an old school piece created by an excellent carver we used to have years ago. Everything about this piece is more complex than you would imagine. The positioning of the horse, level of detail, size, and proportions made this a tricky piece to design and carve. What can I say, I like puzzles, though!

And, saving the best for last, the wolf howling at the moon won the overall favorite by the team this year. Thanks, guys! It means a lot when your boss and coworkers share in your excitement over how a piece turns out. Why was it the overall favorite? The perfect blend of carving elements: CNC, back texture, proper proportions and positioning, and level of overall realistic detail. Howl at that moon, Mr. wolf, you earned it!

And of course, a few THANK YOU's are in order.

First and foremost, thank you to the entire Downtown Downers Grove for having us. And thank you to everyone who came out to watch the live carving demos and see the sculptures throughout downtown this last weekend. Seeing people enjoy our art is truly what makes it all worth it.

Thank you to the entire team of delivery guys that moved every precious piece of art meticulously from the freezer to the truck to the location without breaking a single piece. You guys are truly magicians. That's right, I'm talking to you, Peter.

Thank you to the entire team of apprentice carvers that pitched in this year. We are so grateful for you! And thank you to the sales team Brenda and Amanda for representing our art so passionately and professionally. We literally couldn't do it without you. Thank you to Jordan for working hard in the freezer with icicles on your beard every day. We salute you. And thank you to everyone who checks machines and helps move and maintain our ice. I say this because I've done it, it's HARD work. We are grateful to have you.

But most of all, Thank you Max for being the Willy Wonka to our ice factory. Thank you for running machines at 3am every day, hurriedly buying extra knee pads to keep me from unraveling, bulk buying favorite coffees to keep us all going, and overall being the glue to our crazy rag tag team of ice heads.

So, until next year, Downers Grove... we'll be anxiously waiting.

https://www.nadeauice.com/

The Making Of: Lion Throne at Lincoln Park Zoo with Nadeau's Ice

It's snow joke, creating an ice throne in the Nadeau's shop and presenting it to the Lincoln Park Zoo was awesome in every way. There's no other word to describe it. From the freezing of the ice blocks, to the slicing of the exact building block sizes, to the programming and planning of the design of the piece as a whole, to the coloration and customization of the details involved, to every other process that we used to make this work of art that I won't bother rambling about now. It was memorable, rewarding, challenging, motivating, and an absolute honor to be a part of.

With a job like this, of course it starts with making ice. Programming is the next step in the process, which can sometimes be the most time consuming part. Once the ice is harvested from the machines and sliced to the correct size, we run the programs on the CNC with various drill bits to customize each piece with the lion face and zoo lights logo.

As it snow happens, the next part of the process is cleaning snow from all of the pieces of ice. Cleaning, in general, is a large portion of what we do. Let's just say, the weather forecast in the freezer at the shop has a chance of snow every day of the week!

Once all of the pieces are run and cleaned, we add colored glitter to the topper logo pieces and work on the carved details of the lion arm rests. It's snow laughing matter, carving mirrored lions was a challenge! Having the carved detail for the armrests was a great addition to this particular throne design, for sure.

Once the production process is complete, it's time to pack everything up lovingly in a massive truck, drive through traffic very carefully, and begin the building process!

Starting with a level spot on the ground, we unload the base leg, seat and back blocks into place, measuring meticulously so that everything is centered.

Once the base of the throne is assembled, the challenge really begins: lifting multiple blocks onto each other, making sure each one below it is perfectly level, then slushing (yes, that's a technical term in the ice carving world!) in the seams with very wet snow and water to solidify each fuse. Sounds easy enough, right?

The higher up the layers get, the more challenging lifting the weight of the blocks up onto the next one becomes, and the more critical it is to keep everything level.

Once we were finished stacking the back of the throne pieces, it was time to add the fragile lions as the armrests of the piece.

Once all the pieces were in place, the final step was to slush all of the seams one more time and seal it all with a massive blowtorch. Of course, this can be done with a water hose, which we do in the shop, but a blowtorch is a little more of a show for the people watching, am I right?

Once finished torching, we added the cushion embellishment to finish off the piece. After working with the team on this piece for the last couple weeks, the feeling of seeing it complete was beyond words. While working on the process every step of the way, a project like this is obviously too large to see in its entirety until it's built. These are the moments that I cherish as an ice carver, an artist, a creator, and a member of an awesome team.

Once we were finished, the lion came to check it out too! He gave us a big roar for all of our efforts. An absolutely majestic creature, snow doubt.

After the tree lighting ceremony and the reveal of the throne to the crowd at the zoo, it was time to start the live carving! I will be carving with Nadeau's Ice Sculptures and the rest of their team at the Lincoln Park Zoolights through the holiday season.

For more ice carving updates, check out the updated schedule! New carving dates and events will be added for January and February in the coming weeks.

After enjoying the Zoolights myself, I would encourage everyone to go check it out, walk around and enjoy the lights, and of course stop at the stage by the lion house and check out some live ice carving demos! There's snow better way to celebrate the holidays.

https://www.nadeauice.com/

https://www.lpzoo.org/event/zoolights-presented-by-comed-and-invesco-qqq

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Apple orchards are apple-solutely one of the best ways to get to experience (and taste!) everything that an apple is all about. We went to Kuiper's Family Farm in Maple Park, IL, where they were featuring Gala and Pink Luster apples in their orchard. After picking our apples, we went to their store featuring all of their products where we got inspired to make our own fall favorites highlighting these magnificent apples.

Let's talk apples. There's tons of different kinds, they all look a little different, and can taste extremely different depending on the variety. The trick to using them in recipes is balance. If your apple is sweeter, maybe use less sugar in the recipe to accommodate. If you're using apples out of season and they're very tart, maybe add a little more sweetness to the recipe you're cooking. A really great way to create balance in a recipe is to use a couple types of apples, like one that is tart and one that is sweet.

Kuiper's was so much fun! Of course, if there's a barrel o' apples photo prop, I'm going to put my face behind it. I am proud to say that I had a breakfast that day consisting of only apples, and it was absolutely delicious.

Once I got back to my kitchen with bags of apples and more goodies from the store at Kuiper's, I couldn't wait to bust out all of the ingredients and make some fall magic!

We had picked up this local honey from the sunflower field we went to a couple weeks ago, it was the perfect finisher to slightly sweeten this apple pie filling I made. There is a recipe for apple pie filling in the blog here. Every time I make it, it's a little bit different depending on the apple and the recipe that I'm using the apple filling for. In this version, I used fresh ginger and lemon to balance out the sweetness of the Pink Luster and Gala apples. I finished it with a slurry of apple cider and cornstarch to thicken it, giving the Flour Tarts the perfect filling consistency.

These adorable little Flour Tarts are so nostalgic and convenient to eat! Life is busy and eating breakfast can sometimes be a struggle on the go, but not with these little cuties in your life! They're drizzled with cookie butter and are easy to reheat in the toaster, just like your favorites you used to have as a kid.

Of course, if you don't have time for going to the apple orchard, fabricating the apples, making the apple pie filling, making and chilling the pie dough, rolling, cutting, and shaping all of the Flour Tarts, baking them to perfectly golden brown, and drizzling them with cookie butter deliciousness, you're more than welcome to go to the Flour Shop to get yourself a dozen delivered right to your door! ;)

Apple cinnamon barbecue sauce, hard apple cider, gala apples, and fresh zucchini from the garden were the seasonal highlights on this fall plate. No, the plating isn't fancy, and yours won't be either. My goal is to make cooking approachable for all of you. If cooking is a struggle for you but you live locally, head on over to the "Our Workshops" page here and sign up for a cooking class! They are held at Joliet Junior College and are for all ages.

That macaroni and cheese, am I right? No processed cheese here. No roux here, either. That's right, I said it, you don't need it. Want to know my secret? Send an email to info@flourchildstuff.com and I'll send you a 10% off coupon code to use on your next FCS order AND the magical trick for making this roux-less mac and cheese.

At the end of the day, I ended up making several types of these Flour Tarts. My favorite? The apple one, of course. However, the ones I made with the butters from Kuiper's and cookie butter were pretty darn good, too.

The moral of the story, here, is go pick some apples. Now, before they're out of season. Taste them. Enjoy a farm. Lucky for us Chicagoland folk, there's a few around here to pick from. Take your apples home and cook something delicious. Experience what the difference is in flavor between an apple that just came from a tree and an apple that's been sitting on a store shelf. Try a new recipe. Don't be afraid to take home your bag of apples and enjoy them because they stay fresh longer! Experiencing treasures like this in the world is something I am truly grateful for. If you're looking for more apple inspiration, you can go to the Recipes page here, there's at least a half a peck of ideas to pick from for how to use these medicinal and beautiful fruits!

...and they lived appley ever after. (thats you guys and all of the apples you're about to go pick, that is! ;) )

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