Traditions

I have been thinking a lot about families and food and how they all play into each other to become traditions. And whenever I think about baking in terms of my family, I think about my father's mother. Billy and I used to hide in her kitchen when we went there every weekend because she dedicated the bottom drawer in her kitchen full of sugar. Not in packages. Just pull the drawer open and with the measuring cup in your hand and go for it. Billy and I used to sit on the floor and think we were being sneaky. Grandma never said anything though, she let us attack it all the time.

My grandma died just about two years ago. I know that it was the Friday before my graduation from college. And tomorrow is the Friday before my Master's graduation. When I think of her or hear any stories about her, they always center around food. How she used to send my dad into the backyard in the mornings to get eggs from chicken so she could make breakfast. She made her own bleu cheese salad dressing, made her own juices and jams she would store down in the basement and send my older sisters to get. Dad used to save his allowance to buy his own ketchup when he was less than ten years old because Grandma would make her own and he hated it. But at her funeral, a ton of the "neighbor kids," who are now well into their fifties and sixties, all showed up to talk about her popsicles and her baking.

Every conversation about her comes back to baking. She stopped baking when I was a kid, maybe when I was only ten or twelve, but I remember all of those cookies and cinnamon rolls when I was a kid. I can't describe the tastes anymore, but I can still taste them in my mouth. I have no idea what she did to them to make them taste like that, but they were perfect every time.

I woke up thinking about her this morning. And so I baked cinnamon rolls. I don't have her recipe. Maybe one of my aunts does, but I don't have any of her recipes for anything. So, I made the second best cinnamon rolls I've ever encountered. I used the recipe Molly Wizenberg from Orangette wrote about for Bon Appetit a few years ago. I've made them a few times, and they have always been delicious.

The only catch? I found out that I have celiac disease a few months ago, so wheat flour is out of the question. And I haven't had the courage to go for gluten-free baking yet. It's unnerves me a lot, all the different flours and measuring overwhelmed me. But I went for it today and I'm glad I did. They came out a little on the yeasty side - but if I put them back in the microwave for a few seconds before I eat them they get incredibly soft and sweet all over again.

I did spend a beautiful part of the afternoon watching a fabulous Italian movie with my beautiful friend Kira. Sorry I forgot to take pictures of dinner the other night. We ate it all before I thought of it.

But I did take some photos of the cinnamon rolls. It has taken a break from raining in Tacoma. Hopefully it will last through Sunday evening and graduation day will be beautiful!