Out of Control Rolls

I have often watched people learn a new skill, such as a crochet stitch or a knitting pattern, by just seeing someone else do it.  My brain doesn't do that.  I have to have written instructions and pictures to study or my fingers just don't know what to do.  Years ago, a lovely lady was teaching a group of homemakers the art of creating lace by tatting.  We sat around watching her flying fingers and then we would make our own little loops and create a tiny bit of tatting called a picot.  Everyone was getting along fine but me.  I watched carefully, did exactly what she did and created lots of tiny little knots.  After numerous repeats of this process, the little lady looked at me in exasperation and murmured , "I just don't get it.  It looks like you are doing it right but it is wrong!"  I just couldn't do it until I could find written instructions and a picture. 


That rule follows for everything but cooking.  Oh, I can follow a recipe just fine now, but I learned to cook by just watching my mother in the kitchen.  I drove my high school Home Ec teacher nuts when she tried to get me to make biscuits "her way".  I kept insisting on just dumping flour in a bowl, adding "some" shortening and then a little milk.  Voila! Biscuits.


I remember one day when I was little, watching mama making homemade rolls.  I had perched on a cabinet and watched intently while she proofed the yeast, mixed the liquids and then added them all to the flour.  She had let me help knead the dough and then we  put it into a bowl to rise.  With that done, I left and went outside to play.  That night we enjoyed the fresh yeast rolls.


A few days later I was home after school and became bored.  So I decided to make rolls.  I did exactly what my mother had done, mixing the ingredients, proofing the yeast and kneading the dough.  Then I put it in the bowl.  Soon the dough began to rise...and rise.  I looked at the mound of dough bulging out of the bowl and frantically poked it back down.  "Now, that's more like it ", I thought to myself.  Then, lo and behold, it did it again.  Frightened now that I had done something terribly wrong and would be in trouble for wasting the ingredients, I did what any 9 year old would do.  I hid the evidence by scraping the mess into the garbage can. 


Shortly after that my mother arrived home. Being no dummy, she recognized the dirty dishes and floury counter as evidence of some kind of kid cooking so she wanted to know what I had done.  At first I evaded but eventually, I confessed to her about my fiasco with the rolls.  She looked at me in confusion, then burst out laughing, when she realized I had left to go play before the end of the bread lesson.  With humor she marched me out to the garbage can where we stared down at the dirty, sticky, mass of dough, still happily rising among the garbage.


My lecture wasn't about making a mess or cooking by myself (I did lots more of both growing up) but rather that I should have asked for help.  Then we could have had fresh bread instead of puffy garbage.


In the years to come I would ask my mother for help with many things from boyfriends to pot roasts.  She never failed to be a source of calm, thoughtful advice freely mixed with a good dose of humor.