{"id":2957,"date":"2014-12-01T22:05:27","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T22:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/the-best-dang-gingerbread-house-in-long-beach-2\/"},"modified":"2014-12-01T22:05:27","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T22:05:27","slug":"the-best-dang-gingerbread-house-in-long-beach-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/the-best-dang-gingerbread-house-in-long-beach-2","title":{"rendered":"The Best Dang Gingerbread House in Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gingerbread12\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Photos by Brian Addison. Full gallery below.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Isaac Salgado goes marching down the grocery aisle with his shopping cart during the holiday season, the baffled stares and inquisitive eyes of passersby are inevitable. They can\u2019t help it. After all, it should be within every normal human being to question why a man would have a cart filled with Cheez-Its, bubble gum, M&Ms, food coloring, Nilla wafers, Oreos, Wheat Thins, Twizzlers, lemon drops\u2026 Either he is purposefully inducing early onset Type II diabetes or he is unable to control his children\u2019s addiction to high fructose corn syrup.<\/p>\n

\"Gingerbread10\"Or there\u2019s the other possibility\u2014a far more magical one at that. Perhaps he is a master gingerbread house builder, a man obsessed with creating candylands that are massive, detailed and, on a far more depressing note, becoming a rarity more and more throughout the holiday seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend hours at the market,\u201d Salgado said. \u201cI have to continually reimagine products and things. Can this be a door? Can these work as a rooftop? I just let my imagination go wild and, I gotta admit, it\u2019s a ton of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former executive chef, who opened a cleaning business after he discovered that the time-consuming love of the commercial kitchen doesn\u2019t quite pair well with an equally time-consuming family, has taken on the windowed corner of real estate group DOMA\u2019s downtown location at Pine and 4th to show off his latest sugary landscape.<\/p>\n

Though not quite on the level of his last sugar development, which measured 24 feet long and 18 feet high, his latest creation is still impressive. Composed of 16 houses, the dreamy development took Salgado weeks. Baking and decorating takes about five to seven hours per house, with baking taking one to two hours (with a full day of resting) and decorating consuming the rest of the painstaking endeavor, including an entire night and afternoon spent creating icicles and garland.<\/p>\n

When we say painstaking, we mean it: the entirety of the houses\u2019 details\u2014minus the final phase of putting them on display\u2014are completed inside Salgado\u2019s own home kitchen.<\/p>\n

\"Gingerbread03\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had an industrial kitchen, this would be totally different,\u201d Salgado said. \u201cI do parks, waterfalls, slides, sleighs\u2026 But with limited space, this whole thing is very exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n

While you are welcome to check out Salgado\u2019s classic holiday work of art, he wants to make sure of one thing: don\u2019t give into your inner Hansel or Gretel and start eating the display. Not only is it rude, it\u2019s kinda gross considering the sweets will sit out for a total of six weeks. Tasty for the eye\u2014not so much the mouth.<\/p>\n

DOMA is located at 401 Pine Ave.<\/em><\/p>\n

{gallery}addison\/GingerHouse{\/gallery}<\/p>\n

{FG_GEOMAP [33.7719484,-118.1925612] FG_GEOMAP}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isaac Salgado is a master gingerbread house builder, a man obsessed with creating candylands that are massive, detailed and, on a far more depressing note, becoming a rarity more and more throughout the holiday seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":68247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[228],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-holidays","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}