Bacon Cheese Wreath — The Table That Keeps Growing

Peter has been sober for some months now. The relief lives in my body in a way I had forgotten was possible. The relief is a physical thing — looser shoulders, a chest that takes a fuller breath, sleep that does not break at 3 AM with the question "is the phone going to ring with the wrong news." The phone has not rung with the wrong news. The phone has rung with Peter's voice, every day, sometimes twice. The relief is the answer to the prayer I had stopped allowing myself to pray. Peter came up for a long weekend. He looked good. He brought Janet (the new woman). She made banana bread. She held her own in the kitchen. She made me laugh — twice, both times at her own expense, which is the kind of self-deprecation that signals an emotionally healthy person. I think this might be the one. I think this might be the one Peter has been waiting for, the one who can match his particular wounded honesty with her own steady-handed kindness. Karin is having heart trouble. She had a procedure. She is fine. Stockholm is far. I called every day for two weeks. She said: "You are the most insistent sister." I said: "You are the only sister in Sweden." Fair, she said. We laughed. The laughing across the Atlantic, mediated by video call, is its own form of intimacy. We are eighty and seventy-something and we are still the small girls in the kitchen on Fifth Street, in some way that the years have not erased. The julbord happened. The family came (the ones who could). The almond was found. The akvavit was poured. Paul's chair was empty and full at once, the way it always is. The house was loud and full for one perfect night and quiet again by Sunday morning. The dishwasher ran nine times. The leftovers will last me through New Year's. The 32nd julbord (or however many it is now) is in the books. I cooked Köttbullar with cream gravy this week. Mamma's recipe. Always. The Damiano Center on Thursday: wild rice soup, fifty gallons. Gerald helped me ladle. He told me about a regular who got into a sober house this week — a man named Curtis, who has been coming for soup for eight years and who has been sober for forty-three days now. The soup did not get him sober. The soup was there when he was hungry. The soup is the door, again. The door is the chance. I read one of Paul's books in the evening. The Edmund Fitzgerald chapter. I have read it forty times now. The fortieth time is no less affecting than the first. The transmission still gives me a chill: "We are holding our own." Captain McSorley's last known words. The chapter ends with the wreck on the bottom of Lake Superior, and the men still inside, and the lake refusing to give up its dead. Paul read this chapter to me in 1989, on a winter evening, in the living room. I did not know then that he was reading me his own future. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. It is enough.

The julbord this year asked for something warm and shareable before anyone even reached Mamma’s Köttbullar — something to put on the table while coats were still coming off and Janet was already making someone laugh in the kitchen. This Bacon Cheese Wreath has become that thing for me: a pull-apart starter that disappears in minutes and seems to give people an excuse to stand close together. With Peter looking good and the house loud for one perfect night, I needed a recipe that matched the occasion — festive enough to feel like a celebration, easy enough that I was not still cooking when the akvavit was poured.

Bacon Cheese Wreath

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

• 2 cans (8 oz each) refrigerated crescent roll dough
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 6 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
• Optional: fresh rosemary sprigs and halved cherry tomatoes for garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 375°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set a small oven-safe bowl or ramekin in the center to use as a guide for shaping the wreath.
2. Make the filling. In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese and sour cream until smooth. Stir in the shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon, garlic powder, onion powder, chives, and black pepper until evenly combined.
3. Arrange the dough. Separate both cans of crescent dough into triangles. Arrange them in a ring around the ramekin on the prepared baking sheet, with the wide ends overlapping at the center and the pointed tips extending outward like sun rays. Each triangle should overlap its neighbor by about 1 inch at the base.
4. Add the filling. Spoon the cream cheese mixture evenly along the wide inner ring of the dough, distributing it across all the triangles. Do not overfill — a generous tablespoon per triangle is enough.
5. Fold and seal. Lift each pointed tip up and over the filling, stretching it gently and tucking it under the inner ring of dough to seal. Remove the ramekin. The finished wreath should look like a braided ring with no filling exposed.
6. Egg wash. Brush the entire surface of the wreath evenly with the beaten egg. This gives it a deep golden color as it bakes.
7. Bake. Bake for 22—25 minutes, until the dough is puffed and richly golden brown all over. Rotate the pan once halfway through for even browning.
8. Rest and garnish. Let the wreath cool on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring. If desired, tuck small sprigs of fresh rosemary and halved cherry tomatoes into the folds for a festive presentation. Serve warm and pull-apart at the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 21g | Carbs: 19g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 570mg