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TEDDY LEARNS TO BAKE It's really winter now, and a great time to bake. I bake year round, but a cold winter day cries out for the kind of warmth that only the kitchen provides - a fragrant warmth, full of promise. That's how it felt on a family visit with my sister recently, when I learned to make my mother's dinner rolls. Almost as long as I can remember, my mother made rolls of a feathery lightness and delicate, buttery flavor. She made them for every company dinner, every special visit. It was one of those family things - the origins lost in a foggy past. When I came home on college vacations, pans of cooling rolls, just baked, were waiting on the kitchen counter. When my children were small and my mother came to visit, she baked them in my kitchen. Grandchildren could be depended on to eat them all - they were never on a diet. They called them "grandma rolls", and we all assumed that they were made from some old Polish recipe, something my mother had brought with her in that big fat book with the tiny print on yellowed pages. Now my mother is old, and she doesn't cook or bake anymore. Her hands are bent with arthritis. But a few months ago, when we were all together at my sister's house, my son Teddy decided to ask her to make the rolls once more so that he could learn how. My sister and I got into the act and we gathered in the kitchen, with my white-haired mother in the middle, like a queen bee. She had brought her recipe with her from her house - and we were astounded to see her open a spattered, old, ring-bound, 1950s Betty Crocker picture cookbook. She leafed through slowly, muttering to herself, then pointed to a basic dinner roll formula: "That's it." Well, what could we say? If she said so, it must be so. The rolls that had seemed the very essence of old world grandma-ness turned out to be one of her first excursions into the modern American world she faced as a post-war immigrant. We had a good laugh, and got to work. Almost at once, she stopped us. "No, that's not the right amount of yeast. I use two tablespoons." We pointed to the recipe in the book, but she shook her head, adamant. It went on that way as we continued. "Heat the milk first, and let it cool off a little." "That's too much flour, I don't use that much flour. They'll be hard with that much flour." "No, don't shape them yet. You need to brush that dough with melted butter and fold it over first, then cut it up." She didn't glance at the book, but she was convinced that she was following the recipe. I took notes, writing down what my mother did, and the recipe as we made it differed subtley at every step from the one in the book. Over the years she had added something here, changed a technique there, and made it her own. There was more butter, less flour, an extra egg yolk - in short, it was more Polish. So, in the end it turned out that our intuitive assumptions weren't so far off. We baked a big batch of rolls that evening. My mother had a great time, pronouncing exactly when they were golden brown enough to be called done. They were eaten the moment they came out of the oven, snatched by waiting hands. None left over. Teddy learned to make the rolls, and I learned something, too. The important thing about tradition is the connection it makes between people. It's a living thing. The exact pedigree of the recipe can sometimes be secondary. And the recipe on the page, while invaluable, is no substitute for standing side by side in the kitchen, cooking with your mom. Teddy has made the "grandma rolls" once at home now. I expect he'll do it again soon. After a few times, I won't be surprised to find some small changes here and there... In "New Recipes" this month, you'll find my mother's rolls, and another traditional recipe, one from Scotland. On many visits with dear friends there, I became addicted to the simple cracker-like oatcakes we'd eat for breakfast, or any time with a cup of tea. At home, I tinkered with a couple of recipes until I came up with the familiar taste and texture. Both the soft, tender rolls and the flat, almost-crisp oatcakes qualify twice as comfort food. They are comforting to make; the homely process of shaping the dough, the warmth of the oven, the smell of baking in the house - these are things that make us feel glad to be at home in the cold days of January. And the comfort of eating fresh-baked rolls or oatcakes need not be explained.
Happy New Year - and Happy New Millenium. This time, it's the real
thing.
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