Cinnamon

Day 21 of Spicemas

I knew that eventually with this challenge, I’d trip over my own feet. Today was that day.

I looked at the cinnamon this morning and thought about the supper for friends I’d be having in the evening. I should make a dessert, I thought. Beef stew, fresh bread, it’s a quick and simple meal since this was a last-minute gathering. I could make coffee cake, my husband suggested. Yes, but then I thought I’d make my Dad’s sticky buns.

All was going well, I thought. I put a tablespoonful of cinnamon (the entire contents of the spice packet from the Advent calendar) into the filling before spreading it evenly on the dough.

The butter, brown sugar, and what pecans I had on hand melted up nicely in the cast iron skillet.

It took longer to cook through in the center - the tester kept coming up dough - so it was darker than I like when it came out of the oven. The rolls really rose!

The end result was hard-candied and very, very crumbly. One of my friends pointed out I should rename it and call it crumb cake. I would have to! It’s not rolls any longer, it’s cake. Try to cut it, and it’s crumbs! It’s a total failure.

Which is ok. I wanted to write this up because while my cinnamon recipe didn’t work, that happens. At one point in my life, when I was younger and things mattered so much, I’d have been devastated, especially when I was presenting a dish to friends. In this case? I laughed, they laughed and we all cracked jokes about the cookie crumbling. It wasn’t the only dessert after the meal - I’d been asked to make chocolate chip cookies - so there were sweet nibbles for those who were so inclined. With all adults, though, and the beef stew and bread being on point, not to mention the appetizers a friend brought to contribute, we really didn’t need more food. it was just not a big deal. Am I wondering what I did wrong in my recipe? A little bit. I may have been distracted and omitted something, or, from the action of the leavening, perhaps I added something in twice! These things happen. Even after forty years of cooking, fails are a part of life. You see if that can be prevented next time, and you move on.

It’s been a long road to this level of relaxation. I could be anxious. I have been. I have also learned that there are far worse things in life than having a minor failure which you can laugh and learn from. It puts this into proper perspective, which is to shrug and drive on. I might try to make this into something else (bread pudding, maybe?) or it may hit the compost pile to be plant food next year.

There is an acronym, which I’m not going to spell out, of FIDO. In this case, I think it’s the absence of the F. If you give too much emotion, if you let yourself get wrapped around the axle over the little things, then you run out of sang froid and find yourself ruminating in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, which affects the next day, and the next… learn how not to give a damn. It will take time, and practice. Fail, and figure out how to get back up and keep going. Which means, as weird as this may sound, that you should practice failure. Fail at little things. How does it make you feel? Should you feel that? What can you do to learn from this small fail, and how can you apply that to preventing catastrophic failures in life. What you may find, when life shatters around you and you are facing the consequences of serious failure, not just a cake coming out crumbly, is that you have learned how to succeed in the teeth of utter doom and collapse.

if you can remain cool and collected when all around you are running about like headless chickens…

IF

by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!