Extreme Gingerbread Addiction (EGA)

Like clockwork, every December I suffer from a severe case of Extreme Gingerbread Addiction (EGA)
It hit big time last week and I was ready to attack anything with the word 'Gingerbread' in sight. Fortunately I restrained myself from wolfing down 'gingerbread' dog biscuits at the Grand Central Xmas Fair....
Nor did I wolf down Whole Foods PC/natural/zero/trans fat 'Folk' gingerbread cookies. Would you?
Whole Foods has a DIY gingerbread 'chalet' too. Who cares. I like my gingerbread to be men and unadulterated.

I noticed Whole Foods' mistletoe nearby.

'Not for human consumption'

Is someone expecting ET to show up? Is Santa an ET..?

I am not fond of French Pain d'Epice de Dijon either. This is a kind of soft honey bread/cake that is such a distant relative of gingerbread it hardly bears being in same category in my humble opinion.

A newish pastry chain in New York, La Financiere, fancies itself to be very Frenchie since they offer macarons. They admonished me for taking this picture, so perhaps they really ARE French? These look like standard issue gingerbread that could well be left over from last year and outsourced to boot. I was not impressed.

Union Square Farmers Market can be depended upon for the old fashioned ginger cookie.

And they had the 'brokens' on sale. These were not half-bad though a true ginger cookie should be break-your-teeth-hard and these were not sadly :( Tant pis.

Breezy Orchard Farms had practically life-sized gingerbread at the outrageous price of $5 bucks. I did not have the nerve to fork over the dough, but I did give them a gentle squeeze and they were sufficiently rock hard. No brokens or on sale yet malheureusement...

You can get a perfectly good cup of hot apple cider for a mere $2 at the Breezy Hill stand along with apples up the whazoo etc.

Chocolate 'gingerbread' men on a stick from NUNU in Brooklyn. Lately ANYTHING at all from Brooklyn is hot hot hot.

I looked for a possible substitute like a gingerbread men tree ornament but was not lucky at Union Square...

Eleni NYC does have gingerbread taxis if you're so inclined to contemporary shapes. My gingerbread history goes way back - to the days when I stood side-by-side with my mom baking. I helped cut out and decorate gingerbread cookies to go on our tree. Adding the strings was another favorite task. In addition I ate all broken, damaged gingerbread (when no one was looking of course) so they could be spared embarrassment on the tree. You can understand why my gingerbread addiction is longstanding...

One year Anita of Desserts First sent me a tin of gingerbread and I sent her a watercolor in deep gratitude. If any PBers gets the urge to follow her example do not resist!

Photo courtesy of Sarabeth

I did find the gingerbread of my dreams last week. Hard as a rock and full of intense gingery flavor like the kind my mother made. At Sarabeth's Bakery! I didn't have my camera with me, but I found this picture on Sarabeth's blog. It turns out her utterly divine and quite spare icing is WHITE CHOCOLATE! Who knew? I wonder if the cookie recipe is in her fab cookbook? The icing recipe is on her blog so stop by. I'm not allowed to DYI my own gingerbread. I'm not safe around raw gingerbread dough - I will eat it without thinking twice. Would you?

New Yorkers are out there running around like maniacs shopping till they drop. I am contemplating running back to Sarabeth's for more True Gingerbread.

Should I?

It only comes once a year.

You tell me :)

BONJOUR EXTREME GINGERBREAD LOVERS!