Behind the Scenes
Pastry chef Wally Walberg

By Lynn Jacobson
Seattle Times assistant A&E editor

	TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Wallace "Wally" Walberg, pastry chef at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel & Towers, with some of this season's gingerbread houses.
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Why he matters: The gingerbread village — a joint project of the Sheraton, several local architectural firms and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation — has raised thousands of dollars through visitor donations to fund diabetes research over the past 11 years.

Not a piece of cake: Building a half-dozen architectural follies out of cake, icing and candy may sound like a heck of a sugar buzz, but it's hard work for Walberg — who's in charge of planning and purchasing for the project — and the several other chefs who help out. Each house takes perhaps 200 volunteer hours to create, Walberg estimates. First, teams of architects and chefs meet to brainstorm ideas; then the architects draw up blueprints and templates. The chefs roll the dough; the architects bake and cut it. Finally, the houses are assembled and decorated.

That's the fun part, Walberg admits, where color and fantasy come into play. 4D Architects' creation alone — a grandfather clock titled " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" — is laden with 40 to 50 pounds of candy. Kids seem to get a contact sugar-high just looking at it, and when you see their eyes light up, "it makes it all worth it," Walberg says.

The philosophy of gingerbread: Every year, the architectural firms compete for a best-of-show award, voted on by visitors to the display. And every year, the competitors fall into two camps: the gingerbread purists and the gingerbread pragmatists.

This year, Walberg notes, Callison Architecture took the purists' approach. Its design, a Nutcracker fantasia called "Sugarplum Dream," is constructed almost entirely out of gingerbread and other edible materials.

DLR Group's "Carousel," on the other hand, has a base and moving parts built primarily of wood. The gingerbread and candy were then applied as decorative elements.

After 11 years, Walberg comes down on the side of the pragmatists.

"We encourage a substructure," he says. Gingerbread absorbs moisture, he explains, and "if it seems structurally sound today, it might not be tomorrow.

"More than once, even the night before, things have collapsed."

Repairman on duty: Walberg isn't just the gingerbread general contractor, he's the lead maintenance man. Someone has to make sure the marzipan Martians on NBBJ's "Holiday on Mars" don't keel over face-down in the icing. Or that no one has swiped any of the Necco wafers that form the steps on the Master Builders Association's "Built Green Idea Home." Last week, Walberg could be found putting the noggin back on a popcorn snowman riding on Mithun Partners' "Holiday Wagon" — a victim of late-night vandalism. Which brings us to...

What he's learned: Walberg, who has been the Seattle Sheraton's head pastry chef since 1990, has picked up several pointers about gingerbread design and construction over the years. But the biggest lesson he's learned is about human nature.

"If things hang off the sides (of the structures)," he says, "people will touch them. And it's not the kids who do it, it's the adults."

Yum-yum? No, no, says Walberg. While the gingerbread houses may look good enough to eat, "I wouldn't," says the chef. After all, by the time they're taken off display, the day after Christmas, they've been sitting out for a month.

Which makes one wonder: What does happen to the gingerbread village, come Dec. 26? Walberg won't say, exactly, but he hints that it involves a sledgehammer-like object and a bunch of tired pastry chefs venting their end-of-season frustrations.

Lynn Jacobson can be reached at 206-464-2714 or ljacobson@seattletimes.com

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