Cinnamon Buns

This is not a post about vomit, though it wants to be. There was a time when I thought all my posts would be about vomit, and aren't we all lucky that didn't happen? But this post does start with vomit, and that's as good a place to start as any.

Oh, actually I guess it starts with Sarah McLachlan, because that's where I was for a small chunk of Monday, watching her perform. Fortunately, she does not sing about vomit, though she does tell birth stories on stage, which is what I'd do if I were a famous singing person. She played a good, solid three hours, so I got home late, watched an episode of something to settle my brain, and then went up to check on my kids. My diva, my lifetime solid sleeper, was awake.

"Mommy, my tummy hurts."

We were up for another two hours. I'll spare you the details.

The next day she had a fever, and she kept that fever holding steady right on through Friday. Her teacher sent her work home so she wouldn't fall too far behind. But really, who wants to work when you're sick? We'd get a page out of her, then a fair amount of complaining, then another page. We got her through a few math sheets, and one writing sheet, and she was clearly done. But the work mountain wasn't much smaller.

So I bribed her.

She had one assignment - a read-and-summarize assignment - about bread-baking. So I pulled out my gorgeously stunning Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking book, and I said, "You do that last summary and learn about baking bread, and then you can pick any bread you want out of this book, and we'll make it this weekend."

And we did. She did her assignment. And this morning I baked my first yeast bread, with the best possible helper a home chef could have. She loves to bake, this girl. She also loves cinnamon rolls. And who wouldn't?

With great praise to the editors at Williams-Sonoma, who wrote this fabulous recipe. (Also, buy this book. It's teaching me to bake. It's awesome.)

Cinnamon Rolls


For the dough
2 packages (5 tsp) active dry yeast
1 c (250 ml) whole milk, heated to warm (105-115 F / 40-46 C)
1/2 c (125 g) granulated sugar
3 large eggs
5 1/2 c (845 g) all-purpose flour (plus extra for the work surface)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground mace
Grated zest of 1 orange
1/2 c (125 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the filling and egg glaze
6 Tbs (90 g) granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
About 1/4 c (60 g) unsalted butter, melted, for brushing
1 large egg, beaten

For the vanilla glaze
1/2 c (60 g) confectioner's (icing) sugar, sifted
1/4 c (60 ml) heavy (double) cream
1 tsp vanilla extract (essence)


The book has instructions for you to work by hand or by stand mixer. I have a stand mixer - the pride and joy of my kitchen - so that's what's typed out here. And if you want the sticky buns variation that looks utterly to die for, well, you'll have to go get yourself a copy of the book. Did I mention that the book is awesome?

By STAND MIXER: To make the dough, in the 5-qt (5-l) bowl of a stand mixer, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes (mine never really got foamy, but we'd measured the temperature of the milk precisely and set the kitchen timer, so we went ahead with the recipe, and it turned out just fine). Add the granulated sugar, eggs, flour, salt, mace, orange zest and butter. Place the bowl on the mixer, attach the dough hook, and knead on low speed. Add a little more flour as needed (we didn't need it) for the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl after a few minutes of kneading. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, 5-7 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl.

Form the dough into a ball, transfer it to a lightly oiled bowl, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free spot until it doubles in bulk, 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

To make the filling, in a small bowl, stir together the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Set aside. Line a half-sheet pan or rimless baking sheet with parchment (baking) paper.

Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Cut it in half with a sharp knife. Lightly dust the surface of the dough with flour. Roll out one half of the dough into a 10-by-16-inch (25-by-40-cm) rectangle. Brush the surface of the rectangle with half of the melted butter, then sprinkle evenly with half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Starting at the long side farthest from you, roll up the rectangle toward you into a log.

Cut the log crosswise into 8 slices each 2 inches (5 cm) thick. Place the slices, cut side up, in a circle, side by side and barely touching, on half of the prepared pan. Repeat with the remaining half of the dough, melted butter, and cinnamon-sugar mixture, arranging the rolls on the other half of the pan. For crisper rolls, space them evenly on the pan.

Cover the rolls loosely with a kitchen towel and let them rise in a warm, draft-free spot until they have doubled in size and are spongy to the touch, 30-40 minutes. Alternatively, place the rolls in the refrigerator and let them rise slowly overnight (that's what we did).

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 F (200 C).

If you have refrigerated the rolls, let them come to room temperature for 30-40 minutes. Brush the rolls lightly with the beaten egg. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a roll comes out clean, 20-25 minutes.

Just before the rolls are ready, make the vanilla glaze. In a small bowl, stir together the confectioner's sugar, cream and vanilla until the sugar dissolves completely and the mixture thickens slightly. Let the rolls cool slightly in the pan on a wire rack, then brush on the glaze while they are still warm. Pull the buns apart and serve warm.

Oh, What a Night

Okay, I give. It's after 1:00 a.m. and it's just been a freaky, surreal kind of evening. And it's Monday. Just Monday.

This morning, my au pair was sick. So I told her to sleep in, and I took the kids to school. Which meant I worked late. Which meant dinner was late. Which is kinda where this started.

I came down from work to find my amazing and, mind you, still sick au pair playing Monopoly with my younger kids, and my Aspie waiting on a phone call from his girlfriend. (Yes, he has a girlfriend. Which is really his business until he says otherwise, so no, I'm not blogging about it. And no, we haven't gotten to the surreal bit.)

So I made dinner. I made a simple, easy dinner of hamburgers (with lots of yummies mixed into the meat) and steamed green beans and Wacky Mac. This is a favorite meal of all the kids generally, and my Aspie in particular, because he loves protein and he loves bread and isn't that the very definition of a burger?

Except that when we all went to sit down at the table, he started screaming. And it wasn't a tantrum. He was in pain. His tummy hurt. His head hurt. His everything hurt. And it must have hurt a lot. Because this kid is hyposensitive to pain, and while he may over-react a bit when he knows he's been injured - as in "Hey I can't feel that but it's bleeding so it must hurt like hell and, by the way, OW!!!" - that internal pain stuff? The stuff he can't see? It's got to be pretty bad for him to notice.

Plus all the color had suddenly drained from his face. 

So I spent dinner in the bathroom holding my poor guy's head over the toilet. And hey, y'all, this is my first post about vomit since last November. Ten months without vomit? That's a blog record, you know.

I got my Aspie up to bed, came back to the table and found my au pair falling asleep in her food. So I sent her to bed, too. The poor thing. Because she's been sick since last Thursday and just isn't getting better.

That's not the surreal part, either. I'm used to the sick and yuckies. It's fall, school's in. This is par for the course.

The surreal part came at midnight, when I was decompressing and avoiding the dishes, because that's what I do at midnight. And I was cleaning the bathroom, because, well, you know. Vomit.

And that's when somebody knocked at my door.

After midnight.

There was knocking after midnight.

I am a single mom alone in a house with a sick 19-year-old au pair and three young children. I did what any normal woman would do in the circumstances. I freaked the heck out. I jumped up like a crazy woman, heart pounding, and looked for a weapon (because, you know those criminals, they always knock so politely). I turned on about 87 lights. That's in addition to the 13 lights I already had on.

And that, as it turns out, is why the fella knocked in the first place. He was a police officer, trying to find the owner of a Jeep parked in the middle of the street with its lights on, and figuring the owner would be in the only house on the block where people were actually awake.

Apparently not.

From now on I'm going to enjoy my post-vomit insomnia in the dark.

P.S. On the vomiting ... I'm kinda worried it's my kid's meds. He didn't eat all day today, and that might just be an upset tummy. But he's on risperdal and ritalin, and while he's been on that combo for more than a year now, the risperdal sometimes causes heat stroke with vomiting. It's not hot right now ... but the ritalin means sometimes he doesn't eat, and today he skipped his lunch and his after-school snack, and dinner was delayed, and that poor kid got sick anyway with nothing in his tummy. For the second time in two weeks. Given that he just went back on the ritalin with the start of school, it's got me wondering about the meds. So if anyone reading has any thoughts, well, I'd love to hear.

Veggie Girl

My diva's always had a very sensitive gag reflex. And trust me, this is not a good thing. Ear infections made her throw up. Coughing, too - and this was a child who one winter suffered through eight rounds of bronchiolitis. The least hint of a tummy bug would send the poor thing to the hospital.

This also applied to any new foods. A couple of Thanksgivings ago my diva tried green beans for the first time. She promptly threw them up. And then demanded dessert.

My kids don't exactly have adventurous palates, mostly because when they were little I had this fabulous but very demanding job. I couldn't get home for dinner. So dad "cooked" - or rather, nuked. And they got used to a pretty standard menu of chicken nuggets, raisin bread, cheese and fruit. In fact, on dad nights that's often still what they get.

So, a couple of years ago, in a desperate bid to wean them off of over-processed, over-salted, pre-packaged ick, I began a campaign to get them eating real food. It started with homemade pizza and braised chicken tenders and moved on from there. I can now make a whole week of meals without one thing coming out of a box. Well, unless you count macaroni and cheese. Which, of course, you should.

I also introduced some very basic vegetables: peas, corn, raw carrots and cucumbers. It took forever. I'd have to put a new thing on their plates at least a dozen times before they'd start eating it. Slow and steady. We've actually managed to get broccoli in the line-up this way. I put it on their plates every time I got the urge to make it, and now, at last, all three of them will eat it.

With my recent Family Dinner initiative, though, I'm cooking more, and I'm cooking for all of us. This means that I'm making food I like, too. And that means more veggies. I do offer at least one or two things I know the kids like, just so they don't go hungry. So far, there's been bread and fruit on the table every night. But I've got this long-time rule that the kids can't be excused until they've had one bite of everything. As a result, they are suddenly trying a whole lot more food,

And I'll be damned if it isn't working!

Last week, I steamed and buttered some brussels sprouts. Every child at the table tried them. My boys, not surprisingly, went "ew" after their required one bite. My diva? "Hey, this is pretty good!" And while she still ate just the one, she ate the whole thing. Next time, she'll eat two. And eventually - just watch - brussels sprouts will be a staple of her diet.

On Sunday it was baked carnival squash, scooped & smashed with a bit of butter and syrup. Again from the diva, "Hey, this is pretty good!"

And then she demanded broccoli for Monday.

My girl loves her veggies. Isn't she awesome?

Inner Grossness

Eleven years ago today, I became a mom.

My lovable, sports-obsessed Aspie arrived on Day One of the 1998 World Series, just in time to catch the opening pitch of what would become a Yankees sweep of the San Diego Padres. Smart kid. His dad has him convinced he's a Reds fan, but I know the truth. My boy was born under the pinstripes, and someday he'll remember that.

Being a mom, though, it's not something that happens in an instant. Seems like it should. You push and you push, you bring that little human into the world, and you hold it, warm and squirmy, in your arms. And that's it. Snap. You're a mom.

That is so not how it works.

When my oldest was born, it was this magic thing. He was covered in goop and a little blood, with perfect, slimy little hands and a bright red face with an angry V of blood vessels embossed on his forehead. His wail was tiny and furious and it made me laugh and melt into a puddle all at once. I loved him instantly, goop and all.

And still, I didn't feel like a mom.

I think most women don't get that, actually. You're caught up in the love and the joy and the utter physical exhaustion of childbirth, and you don't realize that there's something missing. But I did. I realized it when, 12 hours after my little fella was born, the doctors figured out that he was sick. They wheeled him off to the NICU in the wee hours of the morning. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to help him. I didn't know how to be his mom.

It's kind of like being a grown-up. That's not something that happens the moment you turn 18. Or 21. Or 30. It happens over time. And then, one day, you wake up and you realize you've done it. You've grown up.

Being a mom is like that.

My mommy epiphany happened when my guy was maybe 18 months old. We'd stopped at McDonald's for dinner and brought home a cheeseburger. Next to spaghetti, McDonald's cheeseburgers were his favorite food. He ate half of his burger and then, oddly, stopped. We kept handing him more. He closed his mouth tight and refused to eat another bite.

And then he started projectile vomiting all over the kitchen.

Poor kid. He was sick, screaming with fear, covered head-to-toe in smelly ick.

And what did I do?

I hugged him. I picked up his stinky, icky little vomiting self and held him close until he stopped throwing up and stopped crying and realized he'd be okay. I had vomit in my hair and all over my clothes. I smelled to high heaven. And I didn't even notice.

I was a mom.

You fight for your kids. And you love them. You love them straight through the bad days and the temper tantrums, the grossness and the ick.

My tiny, angry, beautiful baby is 11 years old today. He asked for a cell phone, a comic book store and "total world domination" for his birthday. (He got a big fat "no" on all three.) And he's embraced his inner grossness as only an 11-year-old boy can. By his request, we celebrated his special day with a radioactive nest of mutant spiders that I carved out of cake, covered in icing and "dirt" made from crushed cookies, then drizzled with pistachio pudding for the nuclear waste and dotted with spiders made from malted milk balls and little chocolate icing legs.

Clearly, I've embraced his grossness too.

But then, I'm his mom. That's what we do.

(Oh crap. I've gone and written another post about vomit. I promise, this is not a theme!)

Where's the Food, Reprise

Tonight I talked to my dad. My dad reads my blog. He is a FAN, and I do mean that in all caps. It's a good thing. It's what dads are supposed to be.

He did have one criticism though. "Where's the food?" he asked. "Don't forget you're writing about food."

I reminded him that this is meant to be about family. Food's just a filter. I am not a foodie; I'm a mom. What's more, I'm a nearly single, working mom of three, one of whom has Asperger's Syndrome, and I'm feeling my way through the mandatory period between separation and divorce more commonly known as Limbo. That means stress, joy, lessons learned, lots of time with the kids, time spent without them, finding new friends, finding myself ... and a whole host of other things.

It also means food. For me anyway. Because, well, it's one of the few things you really can't live without. And also because I used to have time to cook.

Yeah, I so don't do that anymore.

Anyway, I checked, and yes, indeed, there is food in each of my last three posts.

My most recent post was about - forgive me - vomit. And it was about toaster waffles, chicken quesadillas and ice cream. It was also about blueberries - at least it was for me. Be grateful I did not share that part.

That was, by the way, my second post about vomit. I hope not to write too many more.

The one before that was about learning to ask for help. This is a valuable life lesson, and one you learn the hard way in Limbo because if you don't ask for help, generally, you don't get any, and trust me there is little to no chance you'll manage Limbo without it. This, too, was about food - namely chicken, potatoes, wheatberries and cabbage. Oh, and brownies. I am all about the chocolate.

And the one before that? It was about my thrilling yogurt-and-Oreos dinner and the Petri dishes school makes out of our kids.

See? Food everywhere.

Tonight, one day after the anniversary of my first (and I hope only) year in Limbo, my not-yet-ex and I signed our separation agreement. Not much food in that. Just a feeling that the tunnel is nearing its light, and that you don't much want to cook. So I warmed up a can of refried beans, doused it in salsa and tomatoes, then melted low-fat cheddar over the top. I ate in front of the TV.

Ah, freedom.

The Top Bunk

My beloved Aspie skipped his breakfast this morning. Unusual, because breakfast was toaster waffles, and he loves toaster waffles.

Did alarm bells go off? Nope.

He called from school with a headache. He sometimes does that to get out of a stressful class, and the nurse said he was chipper and chatty. Still, no alarm bells.

He skipped his dinner too. This time it was chicken quesadillas, which have been his favorite food since he was, oh, two. See, they make them at Friendly's, which is also home to ice cream. Quesadillas and ice cream: that's his dream team of dinners. It ranks right up there with hot dogs and mac & cheese.

He was a little green around the gills, too. Alarm bells? Not a one. He'd been playing soccer, and sometimes his meds make him a bit heat strokey. So I gave him a big ol' cup of water and sent him off to read the comics.

Took everyone upstairs for a bath before bed. My Aspie was pale as a ghost. His head hurt. His tummy hurt. Hmmm, I thought. Poor kid is exhausted. So I sent him to bed. In the top bunk.

And that's when he started throwing up. Hey, look, alarm bells! A little late though.

So there I was in the middle of a big huge gross mess made infinitely worse by the fact that it all started on the top bunk. I've got a shaky kid. I've got two freaked out siblings. And then the phone rings. It's my not-yet-ex, calling with some changes to our separation agreement. Not a good time, I say, and hey, betcha wanna come help. Ha ha.

He dropped everything and did just that.

Fifteen minutes later, he was there. He read and sang with our younger two while I mopped vomit off the walls and disinfected the carpet. He tucked them in and saw them off to sleep. He cuddled with our Aspie until he stopped shaking and was ready at last for bed.

And then he went home.

It's easy to complain about the soon-to-be-ex. If you didn't have ammunition - both of you - you wouldn't be headed for divorce, right?

It's the being there that's hard.

And the being there? Well, I think my Aspie put it best. When his dad walked in the door he said, "Mom, this means he likes me!"

Yes, it does.

Ew

I have always believed in my heart of hearts that ice cream is God's gift to dessert. It is the perfect treat. Sweet but not too sweet, blessedly compatible with chocolate, and it even has some honest-to-goodness nutritional value mixed in with all the fat and calories.

As of this weekend, I'm in the market for a new dessert.

My wonderful au pair has been running the kids ragged all summer. Long neighborhood walks, trips to the park with a soccer ball, and hours and hours at the pool. All three of them are brown as berries - and yes, that includes my redhead. My water-phobic oldest is learning to swim. And my diva, already a fish, has actually grown gills. The kids are active, active, active.

As a result, come the weekends, they are utterly fried.

This past Saturday, I tried to get them out of the house. I tried to take them to the pool. I tried to take them to the park. Nope. They wanted to sit at home and sleep and snack and watch TV. Can't say as I blame them. But me, I work from my house. I sleep at my house. I am always, always at my house.

I needed to get out of my house.

So I resorted to a bribe. I promised them a trip to Maggie Moo's. Like me, they'll do pretty much anything for ice cream.

Maggie Moo's is cool - one of those cold marble places where they mix up a bunch of stuff and put it into a cup. My little guy went straight-up chocolate with M&Ms. Good choice, though I'm still trying to get the stains out of his white T-shirt. The two oldest, though - they have really odd taste in ice cream, I gotta say. Both of them picked this sickly sweet, bright blue, cotton candy flavor. And then they mixed it with mint. Yes, mint. Oh, and the add-ins. My oldest added Reese's Cups and Heath bars. And my diva, she put in peanut butter and white chocolate chips.

Ew.

And then they had dinner. Meatballs. Apples. A little pasta.

By the time the three of them headed up to bed, my diva was looking somewhat green around those new gills. Then, as I was turning off the light and saying a hushed good-night, she exploded, sending a sea of bright, neon blue vomit all over her bed. I rushed her into the bathroom, where the explosion just kept coming. The poor thing was sobbing and retching and sobbing, all at once.

This is where the single mom thing gets really tough. I had to leave her sitting there. It's the last thing you want to do when your baby is sick and crying. But they all share a room. My boys were exhausted and needed to sleep, and it smelled awful, and cleaning up was going to take a very, very long time. So, in the space of about 30 seconds, I dashed into the bedroom, stripped the bed, spritzed some air freshener, said good-night and closed the door.

Then I rushed back into the bathroom. By then there was blue everywhere. In her hair, all over her pajamas, on the floor, the tub, the cabinets. The poor girl had nothing left. She was just standing there, miserable and wet and stinky. I put her gently in the shower, and while she washed, I disinfected everything. When the blue was gone at last, my diva crawled onto the futon in our playroom, snuggled up beside me and fell fast asleep.

It was over. No middle of the night wake-up calls. No post-breakfast nausea. Other than having to listen to my boys enumerate in great detail and with great glee all the contents of their sister's blue spew the next morning, it was over.

But, as God is my witness, we are never having ice cream again.