Not So Sensible Cinnamon Rolls

(by Sari Fordham)

Author's reading

I'm sensible, the way my mother was sensible.

She wore high-waisted underpants because they were comfortable and made potato soup when it rained. When I bought her Godiva chocolates one Christmas, she held up the gold box and said in her chirpy voice, "Oh, these are very fancy," and I beamed. The next day, she returned the chocolates to Macy's.

I remember feeling disappointed as I watched the car pull out of the driveway, but I wasn't angry. The chocolates were too expensive to eat, and that's all there was to it. The next year, I bought something less extravagant—a kitchen gadget, maybe, or a scented candle. The gifts were practical enough that she kept them, but I don't think I ever understood my mother well enough to give her a present that she loved. 

My mother was born in Finland right at the start of World War II, and her sensibility was shaped by the deprivation that followed. A neighbor once gave her brother a bag of oranges, and knowing that his siblings would eat them in a matter of days, he hid the fruit in a shed where they spoiled. My mother laughed when she told the story—laughing, we knew, at her brother. The lesson to her daughters was clear: Generosity was not an extravagance; it was common sense.  

We didn't always agree. When my sister Sonja accepted a babysitting job, my mother negotiated a lower rate. "A dollar an hour is fine," she told the parents. Later, she waved away Sonja's complaints, saying, "You weren't expecting to make any money today, and now you are." When my mother discovered that I was selling pickles to my fellow fourth-graders, she shut it down fast. "If someone wants a pickle, you give it to them. Who sells food to friends?" Years later, when we told these stories back to her, she laughed, sensible enough to admit she had been wrong. "What was I thinking?"

(Mom Kaarina, me, and sister Sonja)

Now that I'm raising a daughter, I think I know. Our mother wanted us to live in community and to see ourselves as humans whose contributions were important. There is a sturdiness that comes from being useful. And her methods, while imperfect, worked. Sonja and I are both generous in our own ways. I donate blood. Sonja took our stepmother to Ireland, a longed-for trip, which otherwise wouldn't have happened. Sonja is generous and fun. I'm generous and sensible. 

____________

"Don't say 'sensible,'" Sonja tells me. "You're more than that."

Yes, we all contain multitudes, but here are the facts: My school crushes were on the boys who got As and didn't cause trouble. I worked on yearbook, sang in the choir. My friends told me their fascinating woes, and I dished out advice so level-headed that they rarely took it. All the cars I've owned have been used. My shoes are comfortable. My dresses mostly have pockets. I make my own yogurt, borrow books from the library and return them on time. I floss. I wear sunscreen. During the pandemic, I learned how to darn socks, giving me something useful to do during long Zoom meetings. Over the years, I have mended my jeans, my daughter's stuffed animals, the dog's unraveling leash.

My mother, I know, would have loved it all. So creative. So sensible.

____________

When my mother died, I grieved insensibly, but only if you measured the depth of my sorrow. Externally, I was fine. Sonja and I helped our father plan the funeral, and then I stayed with him through the summer. I was in graduate school and could do that. I made trays of lasagna and put them into the freezer for after I left. He could cook, of course, but would he? I didn't get a job that summer, my concession to grief. Instead, I met up with college friends, watched reality TV, worked on my thesis, and in the evenings, my father and I walked the dog. That summer and into the school year, I wept an acceptable amount, whatever that might be. What seemed abnormal was how emotionally adrift I felt. Who were the three of us without my mother? Who was I?

Home wasn't a place for me, it was a person. 

My father remarried. Sonja married. And I was alone, writing about my mother, as if getting her onto the page would return her to us. I lived in Uganda, South Korea, Minnesota, Austria. I studied a summer in Prague. How sensible I was to travel while I was young.

____________

When I moved to California and settled into teaching, I began recreating the foods my mother had made, consulting my sister or aunt or Google. "You measure oil in your palm like this," Sonja said as she showed me how to make our mother's whole wheat bread.

I don't remember my earliest attempts at cinnamon rolls. Instead, I have a Finnish recipe, copied from someplace. The page is splattered and creased, and when I get it out, I think I should really make a duplicate. Instead, I scald the milk, cool it, bloom the yeast, add crushed cardamom, add flour. And though I have now lived half my life without her, I hear my mother's voice, "Don't add too much flour. Don't overwork the dough." I follow her voice right off the page, as I always do.

Finnish cinnamon rolls, called korvapuusti, are supposed to be pressed into butterfly shapes and baked individually like cookies. This was not my mother's way. Like her, I pat butter on the bottom of a pan, scatter a handful of brown sugar over it—okay, two handfuls. I carefully place the rolls into a single pan, pressed together, American style, and I pop the whole thing into a very hot oven, Finnish style. The kitchen will smell like cardamom, and they will come out when they're golden. I bake these rolls when company is here or when it is Christmas or when I miss my mother.

Until now, I have not considered how indulgent they are, how unlike the version of her I carry. She took a Finnish treat and made it even unhealthier. Perhaps she wanted a bit of extra sweetness for her daughters, and maybe also for herself. When I was a child, I would take a knife to the sugar that stuck to the pan, allowing it to crunch between my teeth. I do this still.

I always saw my mother a particular way, but now that I'm nearly the age that she was when she died, I wonder if she was sensible because she had to be. She grew up in poverty and then married a penniless theology student. Our family never had excess money. We shopped sales, clipped coupons, made do, did without. And when her teen-aged daughter gave her a box of Godiva, it didn't feel right to eat the chocolates, even if she shared.

Before children, my mother had painted. She had cross-country skied and played basketball. She wore mini-skirts. Underneath all her sensibleness—the walking of the dog and the recording of the day's temperature in her planner—that version of herself continued. She liked art with a strong point of view, and she liked cinnamon rolls with a crust of brown sugar. She was many things, as are we all, as I hope my daughter will one day realize about me.       

If I had the chance to buy my mother a gift today, I would give her a fishbone cactus planted in an eye-catching pot. And while I had her, I would set the table, brew some tea, and hand her a plate with a not so sensible cinnamon roll.

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Sari Fordham is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at the State University of New York in Oswego. Her memoir Wait for God to Notice narrates her childhood in Uganda, with a focus on her Finnish mother. She is the founder of the free monthly newsletter Cool It: Simple Steps to Save the Planet. She lives in upstate New York and can be found at www.sarifordham.com.

Finnish Cinnamon Rolls

Dough:

4 t. active dry yeast

1/3 c. butter

1 1/4 c. milk

1/2 t. salt

1/4 c. sugar

1 t. ground cardamom

3 c. flour

Filling:

6 T. butter, at room temperature

1/3 c. white sugar

1 t. cinnamon

For pan:

4 - 6 T. butter, room temperature

1/4 c. brown sugar

Place yeast in a large bowl.

Scald milk in a small pot, and melt butter into it. Allow to cool to lukewarm.

Pour over yeast and let it sit for 10 minutes to activate the yeast.

Stir in sugar, salt, and cardamom.

Add a bit of flour.

Add remaining flour, and knead by hand until dough just comes together.

Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Lightly flour board, and turn dough onto it.

Roll dough out until it is about the thickness of pizza crust.

Dot with 6 T. butter.

Sprinkle on white sugar and cinnamon

Roll up dough from the long side, creating a log.

Cut into 10 - 12 rolls

Put butter and brown sugar into a 9 x 9 in. pan.

Place rolls in pan.

Let rise again for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 437 F. (or as close to 437 F. as your oven will let you).

Bake for 18 minutes.