Blue-Ribbon Herb Rolls

The letter came. The Tennessee Youth Arts competition. Chloe's photography project — "A Day at Sarah's Table," the series she shot over three summer days, the photos of Mona's hands and James's smoke and her mother reaching across a counter with a plate of food — placed second. Not first. Second. The second-place ribbon and $250 scholarship and a spot in the Tennessee State Museum exhibition in November.

Second place. The word "second" hung in the air when Chloe read the letter. She wanted first. Of course she wanted first. She's Chloe Mitchell, the girl who gets straight A's and makes hollandaise at fourteen and has never settled for less than best. Second felt like: failure. I watched her face process the disappointment — the tightening around the mouth, the blinking, the swallow. She said: "Second." Just the word. The word that is not first.

I sat next to her on the couch. I said: "Baby. Second place in a statewide competition. Your photographs are going to hang in a MUSEUM. A museum. The Tennessee State Museum. Your photos of our restaurant. Of Mona's hands. Of James. Of me. In a museum. Where people — strangers, hundreds of strangers — will look at your work and see what you see." She was quiet. Then she said: "The photo of you — the one from behind — that was the best one." The one from behind. The one where I'm reaching across the counter and I don't know I'm being photographed and the photo shows something I can't see from the front: a woman who is giving. A woman whose whole job, whose whole life, is the act of handing something to someone else. Chloe saw that. Chloe captured that. And the capturing is: second place in a statewide competition and also: priceless.

She smiled. Small, but real. She said: "Second is pretty good." Second is pretty good. The Mitchell adjustment. The recalibration from disappointment to gratitude that happens in the space between one sentence and the next. The recalibration that I've been doing my whole life — Marcus leaves, recalibrate. Money runs out, recalibrate. The AC breaks, recalibrate. Second place, recalibrate. We recalibrate. That's what Mitchells do. We stand, we stumble, we recalibrate. And then we make cornbread.

Dinner: Chloe's choice. She wanted: pancakes. Breakfast for dinner. The universal comfort meal of children and adults who need the world to feel simple for one hour. I made pancakes — buttermilk, from scratch, Earline's recipe (yes, Earline had a pancake recipe, the woman had a recipe for everything, the woman was a one-woman cookbook). The pancakes were: perfect. The evening was: second-place-perfect. Which is, it turns out, a perfectly good kind of perfect.

I know I said pancakes — and yes, we had pancakes, Earline’s buttermilk stack, the ones that make the world feel simple for one hour — but what I kept coming back to afterward, when Chloe was asleep and I was standing at the kitchen counter with the last of the dishes, was the rolls I’d pulled from the oven earlier that week: Earline’s blue-ribbon herb rolls, the ones she won a county fair ribbon with back in 1987, the ones that smell like dill and warm butter and something older than memory. Blue-ribbon. I thought about that word. I thought about Chloe. And I thought: Earline would have said second place in a statewide competition IS the blue ribbon — it just comes in a different color. These rolls are for Chloe, and for every Mitchell who has ever recalibrated and then gone back to the kitchen.

Prep Time: 30 min + 1 hr 30 min rising | Cook Time: 18 min | Total Time: ~2 hrs 20 min | Servings: 24 rolls

Ingredients

2 packages (1/4 oz each) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (110–115°F)
1 cup warm buttermilk (110–115°F)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus more for brushing
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 1/2 tsp dried dill weed
1 tsp dried chives
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp garlic powder
4 1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour, divided

Instructions

Proof the yeast. In a large bowl, dissolve both packets of yeast in the warm water. Let stand 5–8 minutes until foamy. If it doesn’t foam, your water was too hot or the yeast is expired — start over.
Build the dough base. To the yeast mixture, add the warm buttermilk, softened butter, sugar, eggs, salt, dill, chives, thyme, and garlic powder. Stir to combine. Add 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth.
Add flour and knead. Gradually stir in enough remaining flour (2 1/2 to 3 cups) to form a soft, slightly tacky dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 6–8 minutes until smooth and elastic. The dough should spring back when poked.
First rise. Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to coat. Cover with a clean towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
Shape the rolls. Punch dough down and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 24 equal pieces (a kitchen scale helps). Shape each piece into a smooth ball by pulling the surface taut and pinching the bottom. Place in two greased 9x13-inch baking pans, 12 rolls per pan.
Second rise. Cover pans and let rolls rise until nearly doubled, about 25–30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375°F.
Bake. Bake 16–18 minutes until deep golden brown on top. Rotate pans halfway through for even color. Rolls should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Butter and serve. Immediately brush tops with melted butter. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Best served warm, pulled apart by hand.

Nutrition (per serving)

Blue-Ribbon Herb Rolls — For the Night Second Place Felt Like Enough