Rolling Cinnamon Memories

The baker begins his work in the darkness of predawn, knots his apron and walks to his large wooden table.  He has turned on his ovens already, and is thinking about the tasks ahead.  He sets to work.

A large bowl is pulled from a shelf, set on the table and warm water filled to a level that, if measured by a less-practiced cook, is exactly 6 cups.  Yeast granules from a bag in the pantry are measured in by two handfuls and some sugar added to nourish the yeast.  It begins to foam and swell in the warm bath.

Nearby, a small mountain of flour is dusted liberally with cinnamon and sugar is added, then stirred by hand until a consistency that the hands know is perfect is achieved.  Eggs are cracked one-handed and then beaten in a second bowl.  The creamy pale yellow foam now rests after it is set aside.  A well is made in the flour and sugar mountain and the yeasty soup, foaming and fragrant, is poured carefully into its center.  Quickly, the baker's hands scoop and fold the mass together, keeping it moving steadily with strong, deft movements of arms, wrists and hands.  He leans into the work and his mind notices texture, warmth, and fragrance but is thinking ahead to other tasks he has ahead of him.  

The eggs are beaten into the mixture and then huge dollops of soft creamery butter glistening in the warm kitchen are folded in, kneaded into the now-elastic dough.  A softly spreading ball lies resting on the pale wood.  Flour is dusted with a series of gentle flings across the table top and over the dough.  Immediately and without hesitation, the dough is rolled out to double-arms' width across the surface, a floured rolling pin shoving the dough ahead in waves, then to the left and finally to the right.  The baker looks critically at his work and, satisfied, reaches for a large box of cinnamon and another of raisins.

Handfuls of raisins scatter from the baker's fingers to the yeasty softness, and then the cinnamon is dusted very liberally and evenly over the whole vast plain on the table.  It is sienna brown, a miniature landscape dotted with the tiny raisin boulders.

The slab of dough is sliced into sections and rolling begins.  Again, his hands sure and strong, the baker takes an edge and doubles it over onto itself.  With hands flattened he moves the dough into a long cylinder and lets it rest.  Each section of dough is rolled quickly, each cylinder perhaps the width of his hand high.  The dough is left to rise while other work is started in more large bowls around the warming kitchen.

Returning to the now-risen dough cylinders, the baker grips a long sharp knife and cuts each one into sections again, placing each one side by side on pans glistening with oil.  Every pan is rapidly moved to the oven where the rolls bake, rising and yielding their aroma to the room, the whole bakery and the town outside where dawn is just beginning to glow over the eastern horizon.

Younger bakers have arrived in the kitchen and set to work rapidly, each with many recipes to complete before they can be arrayed on plates in the display case or boxed up for delivery around town.  A radio is playing a soccer match in England.  The cooling rack by the door to the front of the bakery is filling steadily with aromatic pastries and breads.  The ovens are constantly checked, emptied and refilled with more products.  The work is fast by home standards but goes like clockwork for the kitchen crew who have made an infinite number of danishes, rolls, loaves and cookies.

The baker seizes a stainless steel bowl again and pours into it a drift of powdered sugar to which he adds cream and a dash of vanilla.  The frosting is drizzled across the warm cinnamon rolls, still in their large pans.  Each roll is cut from its brother and then placed on platters or settled into boxes with lids cocked open to allow steam to escape.  The baker takes a few seconds' pause, cocks his head slightly and a smile lifts the corners of his mouth very briefly.  Then, he returns to work.

The bakery door opens at 7 AM and customers drift in in ones, twos and fours.  They are sleepy, a little disheveled but still peacefully relaxed.  Coffee is poured and orders for cinnamon rolls, berry danishes, croissants, cinnamon brioche, cupcakes, cookies, macaroons and all other sweet delights move from racks and platters to boxes and plates on the small counter next to the busy cash register.  Murmuring voices, music, shuffling feet and polite courtesies fill the air.

An old man in a green jacket buys one of the large cinnamon rolls and takes it on its plate to a small table still vacant outside.  He sniffs the cinnamon aroma with nose held close to the pastry and his mouth waters.  He remembers his boyhood in Milwaukee before the war when the bakery there made just as fragrant rolls and he could buy one for 10 cents.  His coffee is black and hot, just the way he has always loved it, and his fork bites deep into the yielding softness of the cinnamon roll.  Its flavor sets his mouth to watering in a way no other breakfast food does.  The memory of it is half the enjoyment.  He does this every Saturday morning.  His wife, sitting across from him and smiling at his delight, picks up the outer edge of her cinnamon roll and gently uncurls part of it, then tears off a section, bites into it gently, still smiling.  She likes to uncurl the sweet bread little by little until at last she reaches the heart of it, the piece where the baker started.

The customers gradually drift off into their day with cinnamon and yeast fragrances trailing after them.  The quiet pleasures of taste and experience, layered upon lifelong-memory layer, pleasant sensations and sweet moments are furled by the strong hands of the baker.  The products of his work are eventually gone, but the delightful lingering recollections are with his patrons forevermore.