PHOTOS: Incredible Edible Sushi High Line Replica is Made of Mashed Potatoes!

Cornucopias are cool, but if you really want to blow your <a href="http://inhabitat.com/tag/inhabitat-thanksgiving/" target="_blank">Thanksgiving</a> guests away this year, let them feast their eyes on an incredible edible High Line park-themed centerpiece. If you love <a href="http://www.thehighline.org/">the High Line</a> (and what New Yorker doesn't?), you can craft your very own <a href="http://inhabitat.com/how-to-craft-a-miniature-high-line-park-themed-thanksgiving-centerpiece-using-food-and-recycled-sushi-boxes/">miniature version of the celebrated elevated park</a> using recycled sushi boxes, chopsticks and some of your favorite <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/the-best-in-season-vegetables-to-buy-at-your-local-greenmarket-for-thanksgiving-dinner/" target="_blank">T-day foods</a> like stuffing and mashed potatoes. Hit the jump to check out our DIY tutorial and more pics of this awesome example of foodscape architecture!

<h3>MATERIALS:</h3> - 5 plastic sushi takeout containers - 12 pairs of wooden chopsticks - black paint - black paper - a fork - foil - glue - a knife - A spatula or spoon - FOOD! You can get pretty creative here and substitute whatever you like but here is what we used: - mashed potatoes - chinese chives - yams or carrots - stuffing - cranberry paste or quince paste - baby corn - purple corn or whatever corn you have at your local greenmarket - pickled red peppers - soymeat (in an effort to make this recipe vegetarian) - broccoli - dried rosemary - agar agar + blue food coloring (for the water feature) - mexican corncakes or cornbread - enoki mushrooms (for the “people”) - wasabi flavored sesame seeds - black sesame seeds

<h3>STEP 1:</h3> This is probably the most important step - WASH YOUR HANDS! Since you’ll be handling food that people are going to eat, it’s really important that your hands are clean. Also clean all of the takeout containers. <h3>STEP 2:</h3> Take some of your mashed potatoes and fill one of the takeout containers. Flatten and smooth it with a spatula or spoon. This surface will act as the ground of the High Line.

<h3>STEP 3:</h3> Start marking out the irregular parallel lined pattern that the High Line is known for by dragging a fork gently across the surface of the mashed potatoes. Our mini High Line isn't 100% exact, but if you want to be precise about where to place the lines, use this handy dandy <a href="http://www.thehighline.org/design/high-line-design">aerial view map</a>.

<h3>STEP 4:</h3> Chop up some your chives and broccoli and start “planting” them into your mashed potato landscape where the trees, shrubs and trees of the High Line are. Feel free to get creative here – you can certainly use other veggies if you want. You can even “plant” grass by using tweezers and placing bits of dried rosemary one by one into the mashed potatoes. Or – if you’re a normal person with a life – just sprinkle some wasabi-flavored sesame seeds.

<h3>STEP 5:</h3> Cut some of the soymeat into strips for the "train tracks". We should clarify that the soymeat we used is the kind that is dark brown on the outside and tan on the inside. Slice the brown outer layer off first and cut it into thin strips for the metal railroad beams and then cut the tan inside into planks for the wooden part of the tracks. Place those gently onto your mashed potato landscape first and then layer the dark brown strips on top.

Cutting up the soymeat.

<h3>STEP 6:</h3> Now it's time to make the rest of the “landscape architecture,” which is really all up to you. It's a good idea to start by dividing each takeout box into one distinct zone and then populate it with plants, benches, people etc. Here's how we divvied ours up: Box 1: Gansevoort stair, beginning of railroad tracks Box 2: Beginning of woodlands Box 3: The thick of the woodlands Box 4: The sundeck and sunning chairs Box 5: Water feature and 10th Ave. Plaza

James Corner resting on a bench because he’s tired from designing such a great park with architect Ricardo Scofidio of Diller, Scofidio and Renfro standing next to him telling him there’s more work to be done. As you can see, they’re both really tan from working out in the sun so much.

Here, there is the High Line's water feature recreated with agar agar gel on the right, and on the left, we made a patch of pasta flowers and sesame seed grass.

See more detailed instructions on how we made some of these features <a href="http://clossette.com/how-to-make-an-edible-miniature-high-line-park-themed-thanksgiving-centerpiece/6/">here</a>.

In case you couldn’t tell, that’s Sandra Lee, Andrew Cuomo and his daughter laying out in the middle chairs and chef Marcus Samuelsson next to them on the other chair. Hey, the Food Network’s studios are right next to the High Line so it could totally happen!

The 10th Ave. viewing plaza.

<h3>STEP 7:</h3> After you’ve completed your “foodscape architecture,” it’s time to raise your creation up! Here’s where the chopsticks come into play. For the configuration we made, you’ll need 4 “risers,” which are essentially just 4 full chopsticks glued to 4 half chopsticks to create a 3-D rectangle, but feel free to make your mini High Line even longer and more robust than ours using even more risers and boxes. Depending on how long your table is, you might be able to fit in the whole High Line! To create the half chopsticks, we just sawed full chopsticks in half and then used a hot glue gun filled with wood glue to attach the half chopsticks to the full chopsticks to make the risers. Once that's done, paint all of your risers black.

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