I’m exhausted and half sick and my eyes are burning holes in my head but I’d rather tell you about some buns I made than take a nap.

I am so dedicated to hangin’ with ya’ll it’s kinda scary.

Do you remember way back in the fall when we hosted two Up With People people?

The one girl, Marjo (pronounced kinda like the Spanish Mario, but not really), was from Finland, and several weeks ago she sent me a recipe for Original Finnish Buns. Just the way the recipe was written—with Marjo’s lilting Finnish accent and brimful of exclamation marks—roped me in. And then there was lots of talk of cardamom, brown sugar, and cinnamon. I was sold.

But I didn’t make the recipe right away. There were a couple stumbling blocks in my way. First, her recipe was full of deciliters and grams—it wasn’t until last week that I finally got around to converting the recipe to our (oddball) measurement system. Even with all my figuring and googling, and with my husband standing over my shoulder, I’m not a hundred percent positive I’ve done everything correctly.

Second, there were the instructions for shaping the rolls. Here’s what Marjo said in the email, “Cut it in pieces, 3-5cm, like this: / / / / Push the cutted pieces with your thumb.”

I puzzled over that for a long time. I discussed it with my brother. I discussed it with my husband. Then I googled for Finnish buns on youtube. Gradually I pieced together a method, but somehow I kind of doubt it’s what Marjo intended. (Marjo? Are you reading this? How far off-track am I?)

Here’s what I did. I rolled the dough out extra thin, spread it with a little butter, a light dusting of brown sugar (much less than sweet rolls), and a not-so-light dusting of cinnamon. After rolling up the dough á la cinnamon rolls, I cut the giant roll into slices about 1, or 1 ½, inches thick. Then—and here’s the unique part—using the handle of a wooden spoon, I pressed down hard on the top center of the buns.

This made the swirly sides of the buns bug out and up, kind of like a fan. It’s quite pretty.

In the oven, the rolls ooze a little butter and sugar, but not much (use sided baking pans just in case) and go all slumpy on each other. The tops get crispy-sweet from the coarse sugar, the edges get caramely-uscious from the buttery brown sugar, and the pastry itself puffs into feathery-light goodness, pungent with cardamom and orange.

Twice now, I’ve made the recipe. The first time I forgot to top the buns with the egg wash and coarse sugar and I underbaked them just a tad. The second time around I added orange zest to the dough. It was a splendid addition, but I have no idea if that’s a Finnish thing to do or not. (Marjo? Marjo? What say ye, oh fair maiden of Finland?)

Because I added orange zest to the dough and because my calculations are almost certainly off-kilter, I hesitate to call these rolls by the same name that Marjo uses: Original Finnish Buns. Something tells me that her rolls are quite a bit different from mine. For that reason, I’m going to back off from making any cultural claims and simply call them what they are, Cardamom Orange Buns. If, by chance, they happen to look and taste like the classic Finnish bun, I’ll chalk it up to delicious luck and thank my lucky stars.

Cardamom Orange Buns
Adapted from Marjo

Marjo’s recipe called for only 1 tablespoon of cardamom, but she said, “I put twice that amount, love cardamom!!!” I went with the larger amount (freshly ground in my coffee grinder, no less) and got buns worthy of three exclamation points.

for the dough:
2 cups milk
3 ½ teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons salt
scant 3/4 cup sugar
1-2 tablespoons cardamom
zest from one or two oranges
1 egg, beaten
7 tablespoons butter, softened
5 ½ – 6 cups bread flour

for the filling:
7 tablespoons butter, melted
½ cup brown sugar
1-2 tablespoons cinnamon

for the topping:
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water
Demerara sugar

Heat the milk to lukewarm and add the yeast. Let it rest for a few minutes and then stir in the salt, sugar, cardamom, orange zest, and a couple cups of flour. Add the softened butter and the beaten egg and stir well. Add the remaining flour. Knead the dough for a few minutes, till it’s satiny and soft and slightly sticky. Cover the dough and let rise till doubled.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and roll it into a large (2 or 3 foot) square. (Or you can divide the dough in half and make two smaller squares.) Brush the dough with the butter and sprinkle it with the sugar and cinnamon. Roll the dough up as you would cinnamon rolls.

Cut the log of dough into 1 to 1 ½ inch slices. Using the handle of a wooden spoon held parallel to the table, press down hard on the roll so that the spoon handle almost touches the table. Place the dented buns in greased, sided baking pans, cover with a cloth and let rise for 20-30 minutes. Brush the buns with the egg-water mixture and sprinkle liberally with Demerara sugar before baking in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Allow the buns to cool 10 minutes before using a metal spatula to transfer them from the pan to cooling rack. Cooled buns freeze well.

I am submitting this recipe to yeastspottings. (Check out this post over at yeastspottings [posted the same week that I posted my rolls!] for good instructions on the right way to cut the rolls. I want to make the rolls all over again, now that I can see how it’s supposed to be done…)

This same time, years previous: writing it out and in regards to marriage

So that last post was a little weird, I’ll admit. But dreams have a way of skewing the mind, bending and twisting it into all sorts of odd shapes.

Okay, so that’s a lame excuse. My mind is skewed and not just because of some dream. But still, I do believe that dream made my brain get skewed-er.

The kids have brought all the daffodils into the house and plunked them on my kitchen table. (That is, all the daffodils that were left after the Baby Nickel mowed them down with the clippers one fine spring day.)

They decided that yellow daffodils get boring, so they stuck them in cups with food coloring water.

Some of the stems they split in half so they could get bi-colored flowers.

I had nothing to do with this project. Projects like this make me feel like my fur is getting rubbed in the wrong direction. Projects like this make me want to hiss and spit and give myself a vigorous shake (or clear the table with one mighty swipe of my paw, as the case may be).

But I don’t. My exquisite self-restraint makes me feel very big. (But then today I discovered the children dunking their carrot sticks in the beginning-to-be-putrid, colored water and I think I hissed a little.)

This morning when I was getting all heated up about something—dye-dipped carrots, perhaps?—my oldest daughter quipped, “I smell an angry mama.” That girl is the best quipper.

That same daughter is obsessed with horses. She spends large portions of her day astride the back of the sofa.

Is this love of horses true of all girls everywhere? I know that in Little Women the sisters (or at least Amy) spent much time riding on a saddled tree branch. I remember being slightly smitten with horses, but I think my daughter has far surpassed me.

My other daughter is obsessed about getting her ears pierced.

Do any of you have little girls with pierced ears? If so, I’d appreciate being enlightened on the pros and cons of bejeweling a seven-year-old’s ears.

But back to horses. Ree had a horse photography contest last week. I didn’t enter it, but the contest did inspire me to take some pictures of horses. I’ve decided that I’m going to try to follow her prompts—in other words, take pictures of whatever subject she throws out there—even if I don’t enter them. It provides a way for me to move outside of my normal photography habits. Hopefully, I’ll grow in the process.

I didn’t have to go very far to find a horse to photograph. A horse field butts right up against our property. Only problem was, the horse didn’t feel much like modeling for me. She (I think it’s a she) hung out on the other side of the field and engaged in boring horse-like behavior that centered around eating grass, flicking her tail, and eating more grass.

She did stop drop and roll once.

After awhile of nothing happening, I called my horse-loving daughter to my side, told her I needed that horse to come closer, and then sent her into the horse field to go fetch the horse…somehow.

She did it, my girl did.

The carrot helped.

See the fly on the horse’s nose (on the picture below)? Something tells me there’s a connection between our fly-infested house and this horse. (And our chickens and the neighbor’s steers, etc.)

But that’s okay. It’s all part of the ambiance that comes with country living.

This same time, years previous: my baby’s faces

Several nights ago I dreamed that my husband was a famous movie star. For one of his numbers he performed in drag, and it was such a hit that he had his own line of dresses—both men and women were crazy over them.

The whole next day I was fuzzy-warm infatuated with the man, but only when he wasn’t around. As soon as we were together, the ga-ga feelings faded.

Probably because he wasn’t wearing a dress.

He did wear a dress once. (Actually, twice, but only once when I knew him.) (The first time was when his sister was fussing about wearing a dress and he got so irritated he said, “Here, give me the stupid thing. I’ll wear it.” And then he did.)

The only time I ever saw my husband in a dress was the eve of his surgery, about ten years ago. Earlier that day, he had gone to see a urologist because he thought he might have cancer. He had hatched this strange idea the last couple months of our three-year term in Nicaragua and I had laughed in his face. I think I probably said something kind like, “You’re such a hypochondriac. Just get over yourself.”

So our first month back in the states, when our firstborn was not even a year old and we were still living with my parents and reeling from culture shock, my husband took himself off to Doctor Becker (I kid you not) who informed him that he did indeed have testicular cancer. They would operate the very next day.

That night we were all hanging out downstairs when my husband descended the stairs in a slinky, fire engine-red dress. We shrieked wildly and pounded our thighs while he sashayed up and down in front of us, hips a-wiggle. And then, in a super-high falsetto, he announced, “After tomorrow I’ll be talking like this.”

Twenty-four hours later it was all over. He was doing more hobbling than sashaying, but the dress was nowhere in sight and his voice sounded perfectly normal, thank goodness.

That dream the other night, though, I don’t know. Something tells me I maybe ought to buy him a dress and some kinky boots. He may have secret talents that I’m not aware of.

This same time, years previous: chickpeas with spinach, the case of the flying book, spinach-cheese crepes, and skillet-blackened asparagus