Gingerbread Geniuses Compete in Tasty Tournament
Episode # 53
Uploaded: January 5, 2011
Running Time: 8:04
SCHMALFELDT: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.
With visions of sugarplums yet to fade from our heads, on this post-holiday edition of Clinical Center Radio, we look back at what has become a most delicious tradition at the NIH Clinical Center. Of course, I'm talking about the annual Gingerbread House Decorating Contest. During the month of December, the atrium near the Clinical Center's north entrance looked like a child's dream of the holidays with 28 scrumptious gingerbread structures creating a veritable village of sweetness. Sparing no expense, we at Clinical Center Radio commissioned a visit from an expert on gingerbread construction from the North Pole, not to assist in the judging, but just to offer his comments on the edible edifices, fruit candy foyers and peppermint porches from an elfin construction expert's point of view. For purposes of keeping his identity under wrapping paper, we'll just call him "Mister Spiffy." I had a chance to chat with Mr. Spiffy shortly after the judging.
(Crowd Noise in Background)
SPIFFY: (Elf-like voice) Well, Bill, I must say I've never seen such a magnificent multitude of gingerbread dwellings. If I didn't know better, and if I weren't already so DREADFULLY busy during the holiday season, I'd declare that Santa himself had something to do with the planning, execution and construction of each of these gingerbread houses.
SCHMALFELDT: Is there any one you liked more than the others?
SPIFFY: Oh, Bill... remember our agreement. I'm here to observe, not to judge.
SCHMALFELDT: Oh, right.
SPIFFY: Not too late for you to still make the "naughty list," sir...
SCHMALFELDT: My apologies. I don't know what I was thinking.
(Crowd noise fades under voice)
SCHMALFELDT: Still, my nearly fatal faux pas did nothing to lessen the holiday cheer as dozens gathered to witness the judging and tally the over 2,500 votes. And the voters had a lot to choose from! This year's collection of 28 enticing entries included several familiar stories and characters, including Harry Potter, “The Wizard of Oz”, and Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Other celebrated icons included Snoopy, “The Addams Family”, Candy Land and, as you might imagine, Santa Claus. Some creative cookie constructions resembled castles, cottages, and a stable, along with a circus, the Eiffel Tower, and United Nations facility. There was even a nod to biomedical research that came with laboratories, operating rooms, and lab mice. On December 17, Clinical Center Director John Gallin announced the top vote getters. Third place went to patient care unit 7-South East for their imaginative "Alice in Wonderland" creation. Second place went to patient care unit 3-South East North for their tribute to the movie "Toy Story." But the first place award, the creme-de-la-creme of the creamy, candy, cookie creations, went to patient care unit 3-North East for their rendition of a Disney firehouse. This is the second year in a row for 3-North East to finish in the money -- last year they took third place, as team member and clinical research nurse Susan Perry recalled.
PERRY: Last year we did McDonalds, and then we thought, what can we do that’s fun, attracts kids, you know things like that. And a firehouse with a fire truck had never been done so we thought we'd try that and we weren't intending to do Disneyland and we looked for pictures of old firehouses and we came across this one.
SCHMALFELDT: Like regular engineers, when faced with a problem, the 3 North East crew improvised an answer.
PERRY: I like all of it… but the brick, I think, looks very realistic. And one of the nurses, I mean initially we were like how are we going to make brick? What are we going to make it out of, and one of the nurses just suggested gum, so we used big red gum. And cut it up and brick by brick.
SCHMALFELDT: Contest organizer Anne Marie Matlock from Nursing and Patient Care services had some skin in the game, as they say, since her group also had an entry. But she was gracious about her fellow gingerbread constructioneers.
MATLOCK: My unit made one, so I would have to say my favorite is the Grinch. This year to make, for instance for the one with the Grinch, to make the mountain what she did is she had 20 boxes of rice crispy treats to make the tower over the edge. I think the other interesting feature is the person that made the one from the operating room where they have Santa doing surgery and how they used pineapple slices to make the operating room lights. The other neat feature I like is the Wizard of Oz, and how you can see the witches ruby red slippers sticking out of the edge of the house. My favorite part about the competition was everyone being able to work together as a team and come up with a fabulous creation.
SCHMALFELDT: Barb Gallagher, a surgical nurse from the Department of Perioperative Medicine enjoyed the teamwork aspect of the project.
GALLAGHER: The teamwork, having everybody contribute and seeing how creative everybody was and the different ideas people came up with.… We loved it, we had a great time. It was the first time that we've ever done this, the gingerbread house competition and it’s just a great activity for the OR. There’s a surgeon, a scrub tech and an anesthesiologist, trying to get Santa, Santas on a OR table and he’s stuck in a chimney so all you see of Santa are the boots and the hat, and a surgeon trying to break the bricks and he’s got an IV and he’s getting blood because he’s really stuck there he's in bad shape and we have reindeer, the reindeer are peering in the OR windows to see how Santa’s doing and there’s the presents all around because the sleigh just came crashing down because the reindeer wanted to come see how Santa’s doing, they were very worried.
SCHMALFELDT: Even my own unit, the Office of Communications, Patient Recruitment and Public Liaison had an entry, which -- on a personal note -- I feel was unfairly overlooked and should have received much more recognition than...
SPIFFY: Bill?
SCHMALFELDT: Uh, yes, Mr. Spiffy?
SPIFFY: Remember what I said about that "naughty list."
SCHMALFELDT: Uh, right. Right. My bad. (Ahem!) At any rate, this year the contest received national and regional recognition, including a guest shot on Washington's ABC-7 where a crowd of staff and patients gave the "Good Morning Washington!" shout-out for the morning TV news show. The Washington Post featured the contest in their "All We Can Eat" food blog on December 17. Hand-in-hand with the contest, the NIH Children's Inn gathered a wealth of contributions in their annual food drive. If you'd like to know more about the annual Gingerbread House Decorating Contest, the NIH Children's Inn Food Drive, or any of the more than 1,500 clinical trials going on every day here at the NIH Clinical Center, log on to http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov. From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, this is Bill Schmalfeldt at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
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