Thanksgiving

I woke up early this morning to start baking for our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. I have to work tomorrow, so we're celebrating a day late.

My Grandma baked the best rolls for the holidays. I looked forward to them every year. I never baked them with her — she’d show up on the day of the feast with perfectly shaped, fluffy, white rolls in square sheets that you’d break apart. I’d always save my rolls for when I was finished eating. I would use them to clean my plate of all the leftover gravy and cranberry sauce.

The first time I tried to make her rolls was in Tahoe. I called her up and wrote down the recipe on an old envelope, which I still have. They weren’t perfect — unless you consider slightly fluffy hockey pucks perfect. The subsequent trials of replicating her rolls only improved by slight increments.

This morning I wanted to bake her rolls like she did. This is the first holiday she won’t be able to make them, and it felt wrong that her legacy wouldn’t be represented. Baking at altitude can be a daunting task, but a little knowledge from the Joy of Cooking can go a long way.

My parents let me have her old recipe box after she died. Her roll recipe is one of the most worn cards in the box. I followed the instructions, letting her handwriting guide me through the steps.

Now the rolls are out of the oven, and this attempt is my most successful thus far — the rolls are beginning to look more and more like hers.

Hopefully they’ll taste just as good too.