This year’s gingerbread competition literally came down to the very last vote! The theme this year was “Christmas Songs” and quite honestly, up until the Friday prior to the competition I had not yet made a final decision on my design. I’d initially planned to create a sleigh scene with a line from “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole. But I wasn’t terribly settled with it…it lacked pizzazz…it needed a certain je nais se quois, if you know what I mean.
THEN my entire Christmas Spirit, already brightly aglow as the season got underway, was literally ignited and sparked like a firework when I watched “Hannah Waddingham’s Home for Christmas” on Apple TV…and from there my creativity began to flow. I toyed with making a sugar glass snow globe but scrapped that idea after three failed attempts (I have not given up, mind you, I simply had to move on as the competition date loomed on the calendar). And I got a bit sidetracked with my invention of “Choctails” (adding cocktails to the inside of my Christmas Chocolates), but that’s another posting altogether.
I landed on what turned out to be the winning entry this year (hey, a win is a win, even if it IS only by one vote!) when I received my new chocolate color palette from Amazon Prime. Wow, do those oil-based food colorings P*O*P!! I needed color. I needed lively. I needed a Tiki Hut on a beach. And so my “Tribute to Jimmy Buffett: Christmas in the Caribbean” themed gingerbread scene was born.
As we wrapped up the voting and the long evening, we came to realize that we will need a new plan for 2024. People will be away next year, dynamics will be different, and the theme will revert back to “Gingerbread Houses.” This poses a conundrum for me, particularly, because I have historically relied on the whole “scene” to earn votes. Back to the drawing board.
But new ideas for projects already in place do not stop with our gingerbread competition. The new ideas span all our interests. Rather than exploring the West, we have loose plans to visit the East. A previously planned mystery novel may turn into an interactive fiction piece or something of the sort. When I finish baking the alphabet I have a new challenge to embark upon.
Most exciting to me, however, is a new twist on my beloved blog, Straight from the Scullery. I am VERY excited to share a new podcast with you that is hosted by the mother-daughter duo that includes Maddy and me. We have been working hard on it all through the fall/beginning of winter, and we are finally ready to release it!
Stay tuned, Scullery readers! On January 28, 2024, only on Spotify, Straight from the Scullery will be available in podcast form as we expore a variety of food and recipes through the lens of history, facts, and modern life.
Click here to listen to the trailer for Straight from the Scullery: the Podcast!
Click here to view the recipe for Gingerbread (dough for house construction)
Hillary Danaher 