Monaloca

We rang in the new year family style, with an early pint at Ben ‘n Nicks (our favorite child-friendly pub), tamales for dinner (my hats off to Latin America), and a living room movie (the new “Blade Runner” Final Cut – great rendition of a great movie, but with all the rain and brooding I’ve never made it through without nodding off at least once). Today we hit two separate house parties, each, coincidentally, with a Mr. Rogers theme. Here’s to 2008 being a neighborly year.

We also started what I aim to make a family tradition: New Year’s cardamom buns, or cardabuns, as we’ve been calling them. I grew up with Christmas cinnamon rolls. Every Christmas Eve my Aunt Sharon and mom would gossip until the wee hours of the morn over foaming yeast, melting butter, and a bowl full of dough. As we grew older they grew less fond of all the work and some of us kids pitched in here and there, but eventually we all grew up, our celebrations splintered, and Aunt Sharon’s cinnamon rolls became a yummy memory.

Joey’s been on a cardamom kick ever since we made a cardamom-butter-fried banana concoction a few years ago. So when we found the cardamom roll recipe in one of my mom’s old magazines, we each had our reasons for ripping out the page and checking our pantry for ingredients.

Amazingly, we had everything. The whole process spread over several hours (we had to wait for the dough to rise) plus the finished rolls had to refrigerate overnight before baking. Kai was only around to help with the dough, and Melina got just a brief glimpse of the cut pinwheels before being put to bed. But it was all good fun. And the verdict this morning? DELICIOUS.

1 Comment »