By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
TRIBECA — There was just one rule at The Bubble Lounge’s annual gingerbread-decorating contest: No kids allowed.
Thus undistracted, more than a dozen adults gathered at the TriBeCa champagne bar Saturday afternoon to tap into their creative sides. Aided by a glass or two of bubbly, they rendered houses understated and ebullient, wacky and elegant.
"You get to be a kid all over again," said Jackie Jackson, 44, whose house included a pond dotted with Swedish fish. "There are no rules. You can’t go wrong."
The gingerbread-decorating contest is a fundraiser for the Church Street School for Music and Art, a neighborhood institution for the past 20 years. The school hopes to raise $30,000 from the adult gingerbread workshop and several similar ones for kids.
For Catherine Greenman, 43, and Robin Gusick, 42, who have been friends for years but now live in different states, Saturday’s event provided a chance to catch up and bond while they decked out their intricate champagne-themed house in lollipops, mints and licorice.
Greenman, a TriBeCa resident, said the experience was markedly different from decorating a house with her four children.
"When they do it, it’s a mess," she said. "This way you get to be anal and perfect."
One table down, Gary Kelly, 58, presided over a tilted house with "SOS" spelled out in Red Hots on the roof. The theme was WikiLeaks, and the gingerbread tableaux included candy penguins (symbolizing "rich guys") and a snowy coating of white frosting (because "everything is a snow job").
"Do you know what I like about this?" Kelly asked as he surveyed his handiwork. "If you make a mistake, you get to eat it. And life doesn’t usually give you that opportunity."
The most outlandish house belonged to Jay Dorfman and his 17-year-old daughter Brittany, who traveled in from New Jersey to compete.
Using an electric drill, a razor blade and a slew of edible materials they brought from home, the pair anthropomorphized the gingerbread into a friendly-looking winged dinosaur they named Gingerrectus Insectus. The beast sported candy teeth and a spiky fruit-roll spine and lounged in a nest of dried noodles.
"We never do the same thing twice," said Dorfman, 60, a previous winner. "That would be too easy."
As the last minutes of the competition ticked down, several teams worked as feverishly as contestants on "Iron Chef," making careful adjustments and frantically searching for just one more blue M&M.
The judges — Emmanuelle Chiche, co-owner of The Bubble Lounge, and Jon Flores, husband of Church Street School founder Lisa Ecklund-Flores — deliberated briefly before declaring Greenman and Gusick’s champagne house the winner.
The pair beamed for a moment, then sat down and began seriously discussing what they would build next year.
The Church Street School is holding family gingerbread workshops Dec. 18 at 2:15 and 4 p.m. and Dec. 19 at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. at 74 Warren St. Gingerbread houses cost $100.
