Skip to main content

Continuum Café Serves-up Gingerbread, But Not as a Menu Item!

The gingerbread house creation depicting the Continuum was created with 100% edible decorations.
The Continuum Café Gingerbread House on display at the café serving area before joining the university’s holiday display in the Purdue Memorial Union.

What’s sugar and spice and everything nice, with a candy replica of Purdue Veterinary Medicine’s “Rockette the Circus Bear” sculpture on the side? Well, a gingerbread house designed by the talented team at the Continuum Café, of course! 

As part of a festive holiday activity coordinated by the Purdue Food Company, the Continuum Café team of Tammie Hill (manager), Rebecca Watkins, Christianna Bradley, and Purdue student workers, Merin Manoj and Ashton Widjajanto, designed and built a gingerbread house depicting key elements of the café’s menu and layout along with some fun extra decorations. The Purdue Food Company is the Aramark-run food service enterprise that operates some 30 Purdue eateries on campus, including the Continuum Café.

Features of the Continuum Café Gingerbread House include the sandwich bar (complete with fixings like bread, cheese, lettuce, and tomato), the Coke machine, and a very realistic replica of Rockette the Circus Bear – the sculpture that sits in the curved hallway adjacent to the café, where it was placed after being donated to the college by supporters of the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette’s “Lions, Tigers, and Bears” community art project a few years ago.

The café team poses together with their gingerbread house creation in the Continuum Café.
The gingerbread house was designed and constructed by the café team of (left-right) Ashton Widjajanto, Merin Manoj, Rebecca Watkins, Tammie Hill, and Christianna Bradley.

The gingerbread house contest is open to all of the Purdue Food Company eateries. They each received a base house with the charge to decorate it using supplied candy along with optional extras, with the caveat that everything had to be edible. Voting now is underway via social media, so people can vote for their favorite gingerbread house. The Continuum Café entry was on display in the café until yesterday, when it was moved to be part of the PMU’s holiday display on the main floor of the Union, along with the gingerbread houses that were created by the eateries that are located in the Union. Also, photos of the creations in the competition will be shared in a holiday slideshow at the Union. 

The social media voting is scheduled to continue through December 8.  Click here to cast your vote via Instagram for your favorite gingerbread house – and, don’t be surprised if it turns out to be the one crafted by our own Continuum Café team! (There are two groups of houses pictured on Instagram – the Continuum Café’s entry is #4 in Part 1).

Thanks to our Continuum Café team for using this competition to boost spirits in Lynn Hall during this holiday season!

Writer(s): Kevin Doerr | pvmnews@purdue.edu

Recent Stories

Take a jog with a dog for a good cause!

Building on the growing success of a long-running community event and Purdue Veterinary Conference tradition, organizers of the 2026 Dr. Skip Jackson Dog Jog are excited about prospects for a great turnout at this year’s run/walk coming up the morning of Saturday, September 26. And there’s still time to register and participants are welcome whether they are jogging with or without a dog or want to run with an adoptable shelter dog.

PVM well-represented by students, faculty and staff at annual AABP meeting

The American Association of Bovine Practitioners’ (AABP) 59th Annual Conference last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, included significant representation from the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine. A total of 17 students from the 2nd- and 3rd-year classes attended along with faculty and staff and Purdue Veterinary Medicine alumni. Two Purdue veterinary students received special recognition.

In Memory: Dr. Kevin Thomas Schultz (PU DVM ’76)

The Purdue Veterinary Medicine community is saddened to learn of the passing of an alumnus, Dr. Kevin T. Schultz of Dawsonville, Georgia, on August 15, 2026.  He was 74.

In Memory: Mair Lewis – former Purdue Veterinary Medicine First Lady

Mair Lewis (née Harris-Hughes), the widow of the late Dr. Hugh Bilson Lewis – the fourth dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine – is remembered with appreciation and admiration by the Purdue Veterinary Medicine community after her passing September 7, 2026, in Vancouver, Washington. She was 83.

“Paws Up” for Dr. Kenitra Hendrix and Dr. Craig Bowen – brought to you by the the PVM Wellness Committee

This week we share appreciation for Dr. Kenitra Hendrix, Associate Dean for the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratories, and Dr. Craig Bowen, Associate Director of the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory and Department Head of Accessioning.