Would you walk a mile for a cinnamon bun? June 30, 2009
Posted by philangelus in food, weblog tour.10 comments
Hey, the weblog tour is back!
What’s the farthest you have traveled for food? Did you fly across the country just so you could have the perfect bowl of clam chowder? Did you cross the state line just for a scoop of ice cream? What was it, how far did you travel, and was it worth it?
I had to think about this, and I would say it was 20 miles, each way, for a Cinnabon.
I’m not clear on the details here. The circumstances are vague and I can’t find any evidence of it in my email archives because it was so long ago. However, I’ll do my best.
Angeltown had no Cinnabon. A great source of sadness to me and a great source of joy to my body, which didn’t need thousand-calorie desserts on a regular basis. My Patient Husband would pick up Cinnabons when he travelled for work, but only if they flew him through the right airport and the right concourse and he had a long enough layover.
I remember it was Wendy who sent me a Cinnabon gift card. I don’t remember why, but it might have been Christmas or my birthday, and I think it wasn’t too long after Emily had died. Meaning I was in a fog (which might explain my lack of details here.)
The nearest Cinnabon was at a mall twenty miles away. But I went for it. On a day I felt like garbage and my life was a nightmare, I went and had a Cinnabon and one of those huge coffees. And my life was good again. Well, as good as a cinnamon bun the size of your head, washed down with a gallon of caffeine, can make it. 
But no more–there are no Cinnabons within 40 miles of Angelborough. On Easter Sunday, because the Dunkin Donuts line was out the door, I learned how to make my own cinnamon rolls, and they’re really quite good. Interested?
Here’s the recipe. It’s from the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, 1995 edition, pages 442 and 444. The cinnamon rolls use half the sweet dough recipe; that half-recipe makes 12 cinnamon rolls. When you make the sweet dough, therefore, you’ll be halving everything.
—
SWEET DOUGH:
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 packages active dry yeast
8 to 9 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1) In a large bowl, combine sugar, salt, yeas, and 2 cups flour. Heat milk and butter slowly until warm; butter does not need to melt. (MY NOTE: I put it in the microwave for 1 minute; I discovered that making it too hot will kill the yeast). Beat liquid into dry ingredients.
2) Beat in eggs and 2 cups of flour. (MY NOTE: I hand-mix it. They ask for machine mixing.)
3) Stir in enough additional flour (about 4.5 cups) to make a soft dough
4) Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic; shape into a ball.
5) Turn over in greased large bowl to grease top; cover; let rise until dough is doubled, about one hour.
6) Punch down dough; divide into pieces as your recipe directs; cover, let rest 15 minutes.
—–
I go off-recipe for the cinnamon rolls, so I’m going to give you mine, which doesn’t have raisins and pecans (which would make my kids turn up their noses)
—–
CINNAMON ROLLS
1/2 Sweet Dough
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1) prepare sweet dough. Grease 9 x 13 baking pan (I use a pyrex pan and don’t bother greasing it). Roll dough into a rectangle about 18 inches by 9 inches.
2) Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon. Melt the butter, add to mixture. Stir into a paste.
3) Using a silicone spatula, spread the butter-sugar mixture across the dough. It’s going to feel like you’re painting it on.
4) roll it into a long tube, slice into 12 cinnamon rolls. Set them on the pan to rise for another hour.
5) bake at 400 for 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly browned on top
—–
SUGAR GLAZE
Option 1: Open a can of frosting; smear gobs of frosting everywhere
Option 2: In a small bowl, stir 2 cups confectioner’s sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 3 tablespoons water until smooth; smear gobs of glaze everywhere.
—–
My notes: this does take forever, it seems, because it’s broken up into so many parts. I make the dough before breakfast, punch it down after breakfast and a shower, roll it into the cinnamon rolls before church, let it rise again while we’re at church, bake it while we’re eating “church breakfast” (brunch) and then have it for dessert.
I freeze half of them after they’ve been rolled and cut. To thaw, have them sit overnight in the fridge, then rise/thaw on the counter in the pan for at least four hours before baking.
Enjoy!
Peekaboo! June 29, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, kiddos.9 comments
At 15 months, the baby is very much into playing peekaboo. I’m not sure if the books say that’s the right age to play peekaboo, but he can’t read, so he’s initiating the games with us. He’ll cover his eyes or say “Bah!” and then we have to play it with him.
I know there are many variants of Peekaboo. In our variant, you cover the baby’s eyes or your own eyes with something (a blanket, a cloth diaper, the tail of the sling) and say “Peekaboo!” and then quickly uncover them while saying “Bah!” The baby then giggles.
I wonder if peekaboo is a human thing. I wonder if Mary played peekaboo with Jesus.
And because we’re a house full of wiseacres, my Patient Husband said, “Peekaboo: the board game by Hasbro.”
I replied, “Peekaboo: The Deluxe Edition.”
Him: Peekaboo: The Travel Edition.
Me: Peekaboo: The Collectible Card Game.
Him: That would be Peekaboo: The Gathering.
Me: Peekaboo: The Party Pack.
Him: Classic Peekaboo.
Me: Peekaboo Junior.
Him: Peekaboo expansion sets
Me: Peekaboo, Hunters and Gatherers.
Him: City and college variants of Peekaboo.
We managed to go on for quite a while in this vein. Which is why we’re married to each other, in order to keep the geekiness confined to one household.
But because I’m silly in addition to geeky, this is how he’d write up the session report on his own blog:
This morning we had a game of Peekaboo for me, my wife and Kiddo#4. We’ve modified the tournament-standard rules for in-house use, saying ‘Peekaboo!’ during the hiding phase and substituting ‘Bah!’ during the reveal phase. We find this keeps Kiddo#4 involved throughout play rather than waiting for his turn. We utilized various implements for the hide phase, experimenting to find which worked best. My wife initiated with the cloth diaper gambit, whereas I opted for the more versatile crib blanket. Kiddo#4 used either his hands or the bed sheet. Next time, I plan to use a handkerchief because it’s more sheer and will whip away easier. Kiddo#4 scored high on every round, anticipating the “Bah!” and clapping or giggling between turns.
Let me know when Peekaboo becomes an Olympic sport, because we’re going for the gold.
The ultimate show-stopper June 27, 2009
Posted by philangelus in music, politics.13 comments
On Saturday morning, I said to my Patient Husband, “If Michael Jackson faked his own death, that would be the ultimate publicity stunt.”
We’d been talking about how he’d been perfectly positioned in the early 1980s to become a mega-star, with the combination of talent, name recognition, a skill-set that matched the expectations of the era, and a sense of flair, plus the publicity machine from his previous endeavors.
I said that if Jackson wanted to make a clean break from his former life, this would be the way to do it: fake his own death, have plastic surgery again to change his appearance, and vanish to reappear under a new name as a corn farmer or a guy running a shoe repair shop somewhere in small town middle America.
My Patient Husband and I said it would be only a matter of time before someone called it a hoax like JFK’s death, so off I went to google, and sure enough I found a website.
I’m not saying I believe it’s a hoax. In fact, I don’t. MJ and pushed his body enough that an early end isn’t entirely unexpected; there were emotional issues and lifestyle issues that also could have contributed. Plus, he always seemed to take his stardom seriously, so losing the spotlight fifteen years ago must have been a blow.
I’ve seen statistics about how most young men who die of cardiac issues die from a first-time event (probably because doctors aren’t looking for cardiac issues) although I don’t have any on hand right now. In other words, while tragic and not something I would have predicted, it makes sense.
Remember that I grew up on a steady diet of conspiracy theories, though. The death hoax website made sense once I read it.
Why? Because they made a connection between Jackson and his emotional mentor, Elvis Presley. Who also died young of cardiac issues.
I said that to my Patient Husband, and his eyes got big. Because it made sense.
But let me tell you something that makes more sense: Jackson would have been aware of the cause of Presley’s death. It was in the back of his mind. And like many people who find an emotional mentor or a role model, he was charting his course after that person. I’ve read books about motherless daughters and fatherless sons, and both say the same thing: that a child who loses a parent at a young age subconsciously expects to die the same way and at the same age as the parent.
For someone whose imagination was power, and whose drive was the art of the show, that unconscious loyalty to his mentor might have been too much to bear. Someone who had trained and tamed his body for performance and through extensive surgery might have had that mind-body connection to unconsciously imitate in death the man he’d wanted to imitate in life.
Did he fake his own death? I doubt it. Did he plan it? Not consciously. But maybe in the heart, maybe there.
Sockses! June 26, 2009
Posted by philangelus in knitting.4 comments
Ivy wanted to know why I hadn’t been blogging about my knitting. Answer: because with all the writing, I hadn’t been doing much of it!
For Christmas, you remember I knit my husband a sock. *sigh* I finished the second sock in mid-January, and then I got to work on the sock yarn he’d gotten me for Christmas. He wanted me to make a pair of socks for myself for once.
Remember it’s impossible for me to knit for me.
Well, here it is, JUNE, nearly the end of June in fact, and I finally got the socks finished.
They’ve got beads. They’ve got lace. They’ve got ladders. They’ve got mistakes (including one very stupid mistake I didn’t realize until I was weaving in the ends.) They’re a little too big but that’s okay: I think they’ll shrink over time.
I’ve also got no yarn mojo right now. I’m working on finishing up a prayer shawl I started two years ago, but that’s more because I feel like I should be doing something rather than because I want to.
But really, I’ve got socks. Socks I made for myself.
God and his flower June 25, 2009
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm.2 comments
Please be gentle on me, okay?
First, here’s a flower. It showed up on my walkway and I had to take a picture of something so tiny I nearly missed it, so perfect, and gone so soon.
Secondly, about a week ago, Colleen Spiro had a post on her weblog about letting God love us. If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll remember a little fracas in the comments box where everyone tried to insist that I can’t prevent God from loving me and I kept saying that this was exactly what I’d been trying to do. Well, Colleen gets it. So there.
Anyhow, part of what she wrote was this:
The priest directing the retreat told of how a woman once came to him, a little concerned about her “after Communion prayer.” She said she didn’t know if she was doing it right because she wasn’t using any eloquent or “holy-sounding” words. In fact, she wasn’t using any words at all. She told the priest that after she received the Eucharist, she would just sit there, and let Jesus love her.
I figured I’d try it, because it sounded just right.
Mass last Sunday was rough. Kiddo#4 was fussy and active and overdue for a nap. By the time Communion came, I was out of patience, out of energy, out of everything. I was standing in the foyer (hoping the baby wouldn’t disturb anyone) holding the baby while swaying, and I tried to imagine letting God hold me the same way: me being annoying and grouchy and him just soothing me. Sounds good, except I couldn’t get my head there.
I also tried to picture Jesus showing me to God the Father and saying, “Look what I brought you,” but that didn’t hold. I kept wanting to show God all the ways I’m broken and filthy, and I felt a little bit scolded: let God figure out how he feels about you.
And then I had that flower in my head, like the one above but with its petals more pointed and outlined with black. Jesus, as a twelve year old boy, lying on his stomach in a field, lifting a tuft of grass and exclaiming to God the Father, “Look! Look what I made, and I hid it here.”
And Jesus, admiring what he’d made, this tiny and perfect flower just where he’d put it, and the Father examining it and noting all the little parts of this flower, and the Spirit coming to explore it too, loving it and infusing it with beauty.
I shivered with the thought that they’d pick the flower off its slender stem, but instead they left it there, left it to grow where it belonged, where they wanted it, where they thought it could be beautiful.
The Communion hymn ended and the priest began the final blessing, and I looked up, shaken. The baby had fallen asleep.
It’s a hard thing to do. It’s hard to write about. It was a vulnerable, worried feeling. But it was good.
More on Kiddo#3 June 24, 2009
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm.13 comments
This is absolutely, totally my son:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I’m sorry, but with school vacation beginning and guests arriving today, I have no inspiration. That and edit hell and all. I’ll try and get a real blog entry up tomorrow. Or later on.
DangerBoy June 23, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, how-to.9 comments
I was complaining about this online yesterday, but I’m out of blog entries and the one I want to write still feels too personal, so I’m going to gripe about it again.
Remember a while ago, we featured a guest blogger and her picture of her guardian angel, shaking and clutching a beer? I think Kiddo#3’s guardian must have really identified with that.
Kiddo#3 is five. He is a daredevil. He tackles life with an enthusiasm and an exuberance that would make a force five hurricane stop and say, “Wow, he’s got energy.”
In early spring, Kiddo#3 ran into a tree playing football in our yard, requiring eight stitches in his forehead. This is the same child who is currently grounded from playing in the yard without my supervision because he kept sliding down the deck railing (20 feet in the air.) He climbs on everything. He jumps off things. He runs (and I suspect this is how he ran into the tree) while looking backward over his shoulder at the people chasing him.
I’ve seen this child hurl himself into a brick wall, bounce off, and do it again. During the winter, after an ice storm that left me inching up the driveway at a speed even a snail would find embarrassing, he ran full-tilt down the brick steps on our front walkway–brick steps covered with ice.
Last summer, he pitched forward on his brother’s scooter and knocked one tooth out; the second was loosened. It looked like he’d keep it, but after a week (just as it was about to firm into place) he jumped on his sister to strangle her,and she punched him in the face, knocking out that tooth. (I wasn’t sure whether to punish her or to thank her, since the dentist wanted to extract the thing for $200.)
And last week, while at his sister’s baseball game, right after we told him not to play on the giant stone pipes abandoned beside the field, he climbed on the pipes, jumped, and came down on his face. He cut the outside of his lip, the inside, and made the other tooth wiggly.
We babied the tooth for a week. Lots of yogurt, all his food cut into tiny chunks. It began to firm back into place, but on Sunday night I looked and it had turned brown. Meaning, I guess he’s going to lose that tooth too.
Hello, orthodontia.
Has this new accident slowed him down? Well, the last time he was at the park, he and his sister climbed into a gazebo thing overlooking the playground. Kiddo#2 said, “I wonder if someone could jump off this wall?”
So he threw his baseball glove down to make sure it was safe. And then he jumped off the wall.
(No, don’t ask me why the glove’s safe landing would prove it was safe for him to jump.)
Right now, I need to close my eyes and wake up in fifteen years to see whether he’s made it to adulthood. I’m not sure this daredevil will survive. Or, if he does, if I’ll have survived too. One of the women who posts on my forum assured me that daredevil kids do, in fact, make it to adulthood. They just do it in a lot more pieces than the rest of us.
The other day, he said, “I want roller skates.”
I laughed out loud in surprise, the mental images too many to catalog. No. No. For your mother’s sake, no.
Edit heaven June 22, 2009
Posted by philangelus in The Boys Upstairs, writing.4 comments
My editor for the Christmas novella wished me luck as I went through edit-hell. I’m not sure whether that means she’s reading here or whether she assumes all writers find editing to be hell.
Someone on Twitter recently remarked that he finds joy in the first-draft writing and in the finished product, but that’s all.
I’m actually in edit-heaven. I may gripe about doing only editing, or about editing multiple manuscripts simultaneously, but in actuality, I like edits. There’s a joy in editing which you don’t find in straight-up writing, and that’s the joy of watching rapid improvement.
Both “The Guardian” and “Seven Archangels: Annihilation” went through the editing process without the publisher asking for more than word changes. In the meantime, I’ve heard about writers being asked to delete entire chapters, change a character’s motivation, turn two characters into one character, and so on.
I admit, I felt a little jealous. I wanted someone to care that much about my manuscript that she’d sit down and see every part of it, hold it all in her head, and turn it inside out the same ways I do in order to help make it better.
When the edits came for “The Boys Upstairs,” I’d gotten what I wished for, and I say that not in a “be careful blah blah blah” way. She found problems, found improvable areas, and found good stuff that could be better highlighted. Have I argued about some of the changes? Of course! In fact, to one tremendous change, I replied, “Absolutely not.”
Here’s the difference: I agreed with the editor that she’d found a problem area. I didn’t agree with her solution. Four days later, I found a better one. It was more work than either of her two proposed solutions. I didn’t care: it was also more fulfilling, truer to the spirit of the novel, and it simultaneously addressed another issue she’d raised. I’m hoping that when she reads what I’ve done with chapter three, she’ll say, “Jane, I love you!” :-) (I really do wonder if she’s reading here…)
I’ve had to merge two minor characters into one character. I’ve had to clarify someone’s motivation (although that’s going to need to be re-clarified more on the next go-around.) I’ve had to argue about something I don’t think should be changed. And you know what? It’s fun. It’s fulfilling. Watching the book transform is just as awesome as it was to write the book in the first place.
I do reserve the right to gripe about it, still.
Love and frustration June 20, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, kiddos.2 comments
On Friday, driving to Mom Prayer Group, Kiddo#3 said, “Why is he singing about Dr. Doom?”
Since I don’t listen to Marvel Radio, I puzzled for a moment, with an intelligent “What?”
The song playing was Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” He repeated his question, and I said, “She’s saying ‘got to do’ not ‘Doctor Doom.’”
My son said, “She’s saying, “What’s up, Doctor Doom, Doctor Doom?”
He made me turn it up louder so he could hear the words. And now, gentle readers, you know what kind of music I listen to in the car. And I am at the same time wondering why I ever bother changing the channel because clearly my son isn’t listening to the same songs I am.
But it was terribly, terribly funny.
We got to Mom Prayer Group and turned the kiddos loose in our founder’s house while we moms drank coffee and socialized. It’s usually a 90 minute thing; we talk until about 1:15 and then pray the rosary, talk a little more, and then I have to be out the door by 1:55 in order to be home for Kiddo#1.
On Friday, only an hour after Dr. Doom’s serenade by Tina Turner, I had to separate Kiddo#3 from one of the other children of the mom-pray-ers. They were tormenting one another. I told Kiddo#3 to play by himself.
Two minutes later I look up in time to see him toss a ball into the air in our hostess’s kitchen and swing at it with a bat.
Of course, my son had perfect pitch. He hit the ball right onto her counter, inches from her laptop, and right into a stack of wine glasses.
One dead wineglass and many apologies later (plus a whole lot of broken glass cleanup) I strapped the child back into the car and said, “I don’t want to hear a word out of you. I don’t even want to know you’re around.” We drove home again, and I told him, “Since I’m supposed to be praying with them right now, and I’m not, you stay in time-out until I’m done praying.”
Which he did. It was only fair.
So I wonder, how is it that we can love someone and think they’re intolerably cute at one minute and then an hour later want to strangle them? The personality that loved to hear Tina Turner crooning to Dr. Doom was the same personality that thought it would be a good idea to play baseball in someone’s kitchen (something which, by the way, he would never do at home.)
They’re both processing errors by an inexperienced brain, but one was funny and the other infuriating.
The wine glass cannot be replaced (I looked online, and when I couldn’t find it, had my friend look too.) She says it’s okay, that they like us have enough wine glasses for the feast at Cana. I’ll give her the money and a bottle of wine to console the bereaved wine glasses left in the set. Our friendship wasn’t damaged, and the child wasn’t damaged. But still. It’s a shame the cute has to be offset by the frustrating.
Little House on the Mass Market June 18, 2009
Posted by philangelus in food, sarcasm.13 comments
Laura woke up bright and early on Thursday morning, pulled her blue cotton dress over her head, and raced down the ladder. Mary was already eating breakfast, and Ma greeted her cheerfully while ladeling oatmeal into a ceramic bowl.
“Brush your hair,” Ma said. “We won’t be making the cookies for another half hour.”
Laura wanted to shovel her food in as fast as possible, but she forced herself to eat neatly like Mary. Then she brushed and braided her hair, fed Jack, and when she was done, Ma said, “Now it’s time.”
Ma stocked up the cooking fire, and the girls got to work.
“Here we go,” said Pa, hauling in the gallon jug of high fructose corn syrup. “The first ingredient of everything good.”
“Thank the good Lord for high fructose corn syrup.” Ma poured in the whole gallon. “Okay, girls, now for the sugar.”
Mary scooped in sugar until Ma told her to stop. Then Laura added a cup of flour and a cup of corn meal.
They simmered the bubbling, sticky concoction for a while, taking turns stirring. Ma gave Mary a block of salt which they chipped in half, adding the bigger piece.
Pa came in from the barn. “Oh, the smell of wholesome life on the prairie! You’ve outdone yourself.”
“Oh, Charles,” said Ma, blushing. “We’re not even finished.”
Laura squared her shoulders with pride as Pa looked into the kettle. “This looks like the best batch ever, no doubt due to your helpers. I can’t wait.”
Ma added the eggs one at a time, then the processed palm oil.
“Okay, girls.” She looked at both of them. “Who wants to add the magic ingredients?”
Both girls exclaimed excitedly, but Ma laughed. “There’s enough for both of you.” She led them to her special cabinet, filled with tiny brown bottles with rubber stoppers. “Mary, you start.”
Mary added the riboflavin, the Red Number 5, and the soy lecithin. Laura waited patiently until it was her turn to add a drop of monoglycerides, calcium disodium EDTA, and the annatto color.
“And now for the most important part of all,” said Ma, and both girls knew they weren’t old enough to do this step themselves, so they clasped their hands and waited. Ma opened the tiny tin box that Pa had brought from town during his last trip, and carefully spooned out a few sprinkles of MSG.
They remove the pot from the fire and continued stirring until they had made a soft dough, which they spent the whole afternoon baking.
When Pa came in from planting the fields that night, Ma proudly showed off all their cookies, cookies which would stay fresh until Christmas.
“Good night, girls,” Ma said as she tucked them into their straw-tick mattresses. “Tomorrow, we’ll make the shelf-stable cheesecake.”
