Gingerbread and Beef

This morning we headed down to Shannon Hopkins' flat for some holiday baking. The Jones family was down from Orkney, and they make a gingerbread house every year at Christmas. We made the dough last night and refrigerated it. By the time we arrived, Samuel had the blueprints drawn up and ready to go. The only complication?
The Joneses had brought a MASSIVE rib roast that needed to be cooked as well. So we had to juggle racks of building materials around pots of vegetables in the oven, with one eye always on that roast, patiently waiting its turn. Andrew explained to me that they'd been saving this roast for about seven months, as it was part of the half-cow they purchased from their neighbor in the spring.
In the end, the cookies got baked and the roast had its turn. The gingerbread house went up, along with my addition: an out-house around the back. Then we feasted, first on meat, then on the house. They had a great rule for the kids: if you eat a sweet, you have to eat the gingerbread underneath it too!
We do have a few pictures, I'll see if I can get them up tomorrow.