Referring to gingerbread house activity
shown in bottom entry of December 30, below
A house is not a home, its delicious
BERKELEY -- Who knew heavy construction could be such a sweet, sweet profession?
It certainly was a tasty trade in the case of the house that Aubrey and Tibor and Caitlyn and Dane and a whole bunch of other little kids built Wednesday during the gingerbread-house-building party at Habitot Childrens Museum in Berkeley.
Sure, more construction supplies were consumed than installed. But thats what happens when the raw material is sugar, the joists are Twizzlers, the mortar is a super-sticky frosting and the spice- drop parapets are simply sumptuous.
Without hesitation, highly skilled 5-year-old Dane -- clearly a gingerbread journeyman from Hansel-and-Gretel Local Yum Yum Yum -- developed a consistent rhythm: Eat an M&M doorknob, stick one on. Eat a Gummi Bear gutter, stick one on.
Hey little dude, you just swallowed a Jelly Belly soffit!
I made them eat a healthy breakfast first, but Im not sure it helped, said Danes mom, Anjie Reynolds. The family had come all the way from Sausalito for the build. Gingerbread house kits were sold out of all the stores right now, so we heard about this and decided we had to come. Its better than trying to build a house at home.
Here, a whole community of boys and girls from all over the Bay Area helped out on one big edible edifice, the kid equivalent of an Amish barn-raising. The underlying structural integrity of the building was provided by the folks at Habitot, who had pre-fabbed the walls, gables and roof of the 2-foot cube of a gingerbread house, and set it up on a kid-sized foundation.
Then the exterior decorators arrived. The scene seemed something from The Wiggles, the Food Channel and HGTV. And as architecture goes, this was a little more Frank Lloyd Wrong than Wright. Maybe candy colonial. Or perhaps Spanish-modern confection. And the ornamentation, rather piecemeal. Plenty of form, but questionable function. No windows or doors per se. More of an abstract Jackson Pollack sort of thing. Almost a bejeweled, or be-candied look, if you will.
The completed house was donated to a worthy cause: My tummy. No, actually to a local family shelter.
Four-year-old Caitlyn of El Cerrito is an experienced gingerbread house builder. I did one before, she said. But that was with my cousin Eli, so that doesnt count.
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