On A Roll - - not (Waiting for Go-dough)

 

Homemade Cornmeal Yeast Rolls - sort of...

I'm a good catch. 

Or so I once thought. 

I make my bed, I shop for good values, I fold laundry, I take out the trash and I can even cook and bake.

Or so I once thought. 

Sister Sheri announced she was hosting Thanksgiving this year at her home. All the Washington family was coming, including those in Idaho and my daughter Inga from Oregon. Sheri asked those attending to bring a side dish for the feast. I remember fondly the special occasion cornmeal yeast rolls of my mother's. I let everyone know I would bring mom's cornmeal yeast rolls. Everyone was even more excited about Thanksgiving now that THE rolls were going to be served.

Living the lone and isolated bachelor life up here in Washington with my big, new kitchen, I was tasked with baking cornmeal yeast rolls. And in so doing, baking in the good memories of mom and her specialty rolls. It was a grand idea, fitting for the Thanksgiving family gathering.

I needed to shop for the not-so-common ingredients; cornmeal, dry milk, yeast and extra butter ('Don't you dare run out of butter' is what the voice always whisper to me when I shop for my baking items). I motored into Stanwood to get the requisite ingredients listed on mom's handwritten 3x5 recipe card. I wandered the aisles; where is the cornmeal? I found shelves of flour, pancake mix, yeast and all the allied types of baking ingredients - but I saw no cornmeal. Up and down, try another aisle, come back, up and down. Looking, looking, looking... Ah! Cornmeal on the top of the shelf, just about where I thought it should be.

I snagged a yellow box of cornmeal, dry milk, a jar of fresh yeast and extra butter. Back to base where I had flour, eggs, salt and sugar already in my pantry. I was set. I felt good about this Thanksgiving and my contribution.

Inga took me up on my offer for a pre-Thanksgiving visit, riding the Amtrak Train north from Portland to Stanwood, where I picked her up on Tuesday night, November 26 (all tickets sold out for a train seat for Wed. the 27th).    

With the rare event of having my engagement calendar filling up, I decided to bake a batch of rolls Tuesday morning, pick Inga up at the station that evening. Then we'd have all of Wednesday to have fun. We'd drive to Sheri's with my rolls on Thursday, the 28th for Thanksgiving. First item of my planned sequence: Start baking. 

Great disillusionment! I snagged a yellow box that said 'cornmeal' off the shelf, but I didn't read the fine print: CORNMEAL white. Dang it! Corneal should be yellow not white. What good is cornmeal if it isn't yellow like an ear of golden corn? It's no damn good is what it is, if it's white cornmeal. That's my honest opinion and I'm a stickin' with it.

I made a batch of pale, anemic, wan, washed-out lumps of white cornmeal rolls because I didn't want to go back to the store and suffer admitting to my moral failure of not being savvy enough to get a proper box of yellow cornmeal. Perhaps this whole cornmeal yeast roll disaster can be attributed to the bad attitude and angry, deflated vibe that filled my kitchen and doomed my recipe once I realized I was suckered into buying white cornmeal.

I cooked my cornmeal (such as it was), my butter, sugar and salt, added dry milk and stirred in my yeast and mixed in flour. I formed my rolls and waited for the second rising. It never happened. I was dismayed. I waited and nothing happened. It was like waiting for Go-dough - my lumps of dough just sat there. I took them out of the oven, they were heavy like bricks.

Inga and I toured bakeries and art stores in La Conner on Wednesday as planned. Yet I could not shake off the gloom of my failed cornmeal yeast rolls. Late on Wednesday night, I made a second batch of rolls using a different brand of flour. I did the same thing hoping for different results - the definition of insanity. 

I was up early on Thanksgiving morn to mourn my culinary flop and bake last night's batch before we left on the road later in the morning. The results were the same of course.

At Sheri's Thanksgiving table, my cornmeal yeast rolls were mocked and belittled and eventually served. But few wanted to taste these little white dense lumps of sadness. 

There was much to be thankful for at our family feast of Thanksgiving. But if my rolls were the type of food the New World had to offer, I fear the Pilgrims would have never boarded the Mayflower and stayed in England and ate blood pudding.

I think I will try to lift this cursed course of cornmeal cuisine later. But if they fail again, I will just dump my secret shame and tell myself I am still a good catch because I will take out the trash that includes a batch of unrisen white cornmeal yeast rolls.