A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Gingerbread architecture can be a world of crazy excess. I recall an exhibit years ago that featured a replica of Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright house built over a waterfall in rural Pennsylvania. A gingerbread Falling Water is a serious real estate investment. One online tutorial mentions 12 hours of design and 40 hours of building. And that’s time as measured by experts in the gingerbread construction business.
I couldn’t imagine the hours I’d need.
This issue, we asked expert baker Andrea Lekberg to offer some gingerbread construction advice for amateurs, see page 24. Lekberg has world-class talent; she’s worked at the Coyote Café in Sante Fe, NM, at Sweet Melissa’s Patisserie in Brooklyn and Batch in the West Village. Lucky for us in the Garden State she brought her easy smile and her charming bake shop to Morristown. At The Artist Baker, the light fixtures are made of spoons, a revealing detail. Lekberg knows what’s important. In life and in gingerbread: Have fun.
Baking is challenging. Precision is required. This time of year, expectations run high. Rose Levy Beranbaum, the Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of The Cake Bible, and (drum roll) now an enthusiastic resident of the Garden State, has just released Rose’s Baking Basics. The book offers step-by-step instructions, with photos, to assure success (and confidence) in the kitchen. Lucky again for us, food writer Marissa Rothkopf Bates is a friend of the revered cookbook author. The resulting interview, on page 30, offers a sweet, intimate peek into the Beranbaum kitchen and day-to-day life in quiet Warren County.
In this, our Holiday issue, we also offer a shout out to all those families who put aside their differences and disagreements, at least for one day, to gather in celebration at the Thanksgiving table. A personal essay by Jessica Robles offers a poignant reminder of the power of such a gathering. See page 18.
We are most proud this issue of our Immigrants & Restaurants story, page 36. In NJ, restaurant owners today face a severe labor shortage, plus surprise inspections by ICE. Our comprehensive story, by Anthony Ewing, details the effects of immigrant policy shifts on the restaurant business in the Garden State, where one in five residents is foreign-born.
Meantime, I’ve been inspired, following an online search, by an adobe gingerbread house created by California pastry chef and chocolatier Ramon Perez. It’s one story, a few windows, with a chocolate-bar roof. It’s slathered in white icing, which likely would mask mistakes. It looks possible for me to build. It looks as though it could be the home of a screenwriter in Los Angeles, which, in Jersey, is just enough different to be a conversation starter. Best of all, it looks fun.
Cheers,
Teresa Politano
Editor
P.S. See page 79 for details of the Edible Jersey James Beard Dinner, with Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen and The Winemakers Co-Op, on Dec. 6. (A power failure forced us to reschedule our summer dinner.) Hope to see you there!
