Prairie chef provides gingerbread homes a midcentury fashionable flip
During the 2018 holiday season, Chef Anthony Strong longed for a weekend getaway to Lake Tahoe but couldn’t justify the time – his restaurant in Mission District, Prairie, was just 2 months old at the time. “So I decided to build a winter ski hut out of gingerbread instead,” says Strong, 35.
Strong fell into the gingerbread house, which was partly inspired by his background in construction, between jobs, and it has since become an annual tradition. In the past two years, he’s moved from traditionally decorated gingerbread shapes to the slimmer style of mid-century modern architecture, and he’s sharing his enthusiasm in a series of gingerbread ski lodge workshops in Prairie this month.
In 2018, Strong drew on the retro-futurism of the space colonies by Bay Area illustrator Rick Guidice, which were shiny, optimistic visions of cosmic suburbs commissioned by the NASA Art Program in 1975. Strong’s original ski cabin had an unmistakable butterfly roof, a carport, surrounded by a “breeze block” wall made of peppermint-colored lifesavers and large panes of caramelized sugar glass – after all, an intimate connection with the outside world is a guiding principle of the mid-century modern design movement.
The house had an amber glow, as if there was a crackling fireplace inside, and was warm and inviting in a winter wonderland of finely ground coconut snow, candy-coated chocolate stones, and a forest of cut evergreen gingerbread trees.
In addition to its modern silhouette, the hut has also moved away from the traditional deluge of sweets and icing flourishes that go back to the beginnings of gingerbread making in Germany in the 16th century.
“Gaudy is not an option,” says the chef, who recently upgraded the foot-long, 9-inch-high cabin with more sophistication than last year’s model – entire walls are now made of sugar glass, and the snowy evergreens are brilliantly represented by sprigs of rosemary, an ingenuity of Strong’s girlfriend Katherine Altonaga, 31. “Doing something beautiful is first and foremost.”
When Strong hosts his gingerbread ski lodge workshops in Prairie this month, there are bottomless dragees, gummy candies, and candy canes for those prone to unbridled jewelry. The different parts of the structure are pre-baked and pre-cut for the students; Strong achieves crisp lines by using an Exacto knife on sugar slices and homemade gingerbread that are still warm.
Chef Anthony Strong shows off his modern mid-century Tahoe vacation lodge in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, November 20, 2019.Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
While some homemade gingerbread houses are known to sag or slim over time, the chef uses an overly sticky, heavily overworked batter that, despite its rich golden color and seductive aroma of molasses, ginger, and cinnamon, he calls “bombproof”. Likewise the “cement-strong” glaze, which is filled into piping bags for the workshops. The glue made from finely sifted powdered sugar and egg white is used to glue the gingerbread seams together.
“The house is probably not meant to be eaten,” says Strong. “At least not without a liter of milk on the side.”
The Noe Valley resident built his first gingerbread house in 2016 after leaving his veteran post as head chef at Delfina Restaurant Group. For the first time in 11 years, Strong was free over the holidays. The result of all that free time was a two story suburban style home, heavy on the decorative frosting swirls and surrounded by a picket fence.
“I had so much fun doing it that I couldn’t help it. I preserved it with hairspray and then put it in my closet, ”says the Minnesota native, who grew up helping his father build furniture, porches, and additions to houses. Strong was even the general contractor for Prairie, overseeing the skimpy design and construction, which features indigo-colored plywood walls instead of expensive tile or wallpaper, as well as some of Rick Guidice’s cosmic prints. Modern gingerbread houses seemed like a natural intersection between Strong’s culinary know-how and design talent.
Chef Anthony Strong and Katherine Altonaga work on the carport of their modern mid-century Tahoe vacation lodge in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, November 20, 2019.Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
In 2017, he tried a 2 foot tall, designed by Dr. Seuss-inspired fun house with a cantilevered colonnade that seemed to defy gravity. In its current mid-century modern phase, Strong has considered recreating the historic Kentucky Fried Chicken building in Palm Springs with its towering, wing-like roof, yet another retro-futuristic form of the era. Maybe next year.
The perfecting of the modern ski lodge from the middle of the century was a suitable holiday activity for the busy restaurateur and snow-hungry Midwesterner, which he is now doing with Altonaga. You’d think that building a gingerbread miniature wouldn’t have the restorative benefits that an actual retreat in a true Lake Tahoe cabin could offer, but Strong would contradict that.
“I’m really crazy about gingerbread,” he says. “I go down a rabbit hole and suddenly two days have passed.”
Leilani Marie Labong is a San Francisco-based freelance writer. Email: food@sfchronicle.com
Build your own gingerbread ski lodge workshops with Chef Anthony Strong. 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. December 7, 14, and 21 at Prairie, 3431 19th St., San Francisco. 415-483-1112 or http://prairiesf.com/about/. Reservations required. $ 150 for a house, two people.
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