Gingerbread
Last night we (some of we, anyway) went to a gingerbread house building party. This was hosted by a good friend, a woman (hospitality minister at our church) and her husband. She supplied pre-baked gingerbread walls and roof slabs, and the builders stuck these together and decorated the heck out of them with candy and goo. I know a lot of subdivisions that operate on this principle.
The first step is always to cement the pre-baked parts together. This is accomplished by using a substance made from marshmallow cream and God knows what else. All I can tell you is that it is gooey when first made and like mortar when dry.
Getting the walls and roof to stay together is a bit of a feat, since the goo takes a while to set up, and the would-be gingerbread contractor is usually eager to get on to the real task: globbing as much candy and stuff on the house as is possible. Adding all this of course makes the pieces heavier, so it is a fairly common event to have the house collapse under it own carbohydrate-induced weight before the goo has had a chance to adequately harden.
To most of the kids involved, this initially is about seeing how much candy can be piled up, to be later eaten. It's the grownups who are fun to watch, since they tend to be the ones most concerned with actual esthetics of the architecture. Dorothy (my wife) and one of her girlfriends did a house that was in no way even remotely a kid's house.
As for me, my interest is in one thing and one thing alone. Once all the candy is picked off the house (which always, ALWAYS happens after the construction ends), the slow consumption of the underlying structure begins, one wall at a time. Breaking off a corner, eating it, chewing on a hunk of roof: it's like a North Dallas teardown.
I love gingerbread.
Yum!
The first step is always to cement the pre-baked parts together. This is accomplished by using a substance made from marshmallow cream and God knows what else. All I can tell you is that it is gooey when first made and like mortar when dry.
Getting the walls and roof to stay together is a bit of a feat, since the goo takes a while to set up, and the would-be gingerbread contractor is usually eager to get on to the real task: globbing as much candy and stuff on the house as is possible. Adding all this of course makes the pieces heavier, so it is a fairly common event to have the house collapse under it own carbohydrate-induced weight before the goo has had a chance to adequately harden.
To most of the kids involved, this initially is about seeing how much candy can be piled up, to be later eaten. It's the grownups who are fun to watch, since they tend to be the ones most concerned with actual esthetics of the architecture. Dorothy (my wife) and one of her girlfriends did a house that was in no way even remotely a kid's house.
As for me, my interest is in one thing and one thing alone. Once all the candy is picked off the house (which always, ALWAYS happens after the construction ends), the slow consumption of the underlying structure begins, one wall at a time. Breaking off a corner, eating it, chewing on a hunk of roof: it's like a North Dallas teardown.
I love gingerbread.
Yum!
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