I Want To Eat The White House!

I always look forward to seeing the White House Christmas Decoration special and if you missed it Sunday night, here is the item that is always my favorite:

The Gingerbread White House 2009

(Click image to view detail)

This year's white-chocolate covered gingerbread house weighs 390-lb (250 pounds of white chocolate and 140 pounds of gingerbread) and is 56- by 29-inches. I mean seriously, gingerbread covered with white chocolate? Have I died and gone to heaven?

The Kitchen Garden

The marzipan Kitchen Garden is complete with veggies that were actually grown during the late summer/Fall season, with eggplant, radishes, carrots, cabbages, peas, cauliflower—and tiny handwritten signs that have the names of the vegetables on them.

"The garden has been so important to us this year," Yosses, the White House Pastry chef said, "So we wanted to include it."

The "dirt" in the mini Kitchen Garden is dried chocolate cake, which Yosses explained was crumbled up in a food processor. A group of visiting elementary school kids got a marzipan modeling lesson from Yosses last weekend, and helped create the garden. That's pretty fun, because it replicates the various school groups that have worked in the real Kitchen Garden: Students from Bancroft and Kimball elementary schools in DC have been garden helpers.

You can read the entire article here.

Bo takes center stage

I love all the decorations and the trees are always out of this world, but for me, the gingerbread houses are the star attraction each year. Making a gingerbread house for display at the The White House started in 1969 when Nixon was in office and the tradition has continue ever since. Here are some from other years:

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2000

1994

1991

I wish I could have found the ones from other years, especially the first one with Trisha Nixon standing in front of the small gingerbread A-frame.




The book Christmas at the White House by Jennifer Pickens (2009, Fife & Drum Press) beautifully documents the lavish public and private Christmas decorations, celebrations, themes and traditions spanning half of a century inside the world's most famous address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Illustrated with more than 500 exquisite photographs, most of which have never been viewed by the public before, this 408 page book is the first documented and published history of fifty years and nine different administrations beginning in the early 1960s with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who initiated formal Christmas themes at the White House. With a foreword written by First Lady Laura Bush, this singular book has earned the devotion of six of the most recent United States First Ladies, all of whom penned introductions to their sections. Read what Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush have to say about how they celebrated Christmas inside America's most special home.

Video of sample images from the book (including the 1969 gingerbread house):



For instructions on how to make a gingerbread townhouse visit Martha Stewart. You can also view photos sent in by her readers of their creations by clicking on the house below. If you built one and posted it on your blog, please let me know and leave a link to it in your comment. I'd love to see it!


I didn't make a gingerbread house today, but I did make a Christmas tree with seashells. I'll be posting the photos on Wednesday, so I do hope you'll drop by to see my beachy tree. Have a fabulous week!