Cherry Turnovers — The Kitchen Holds What the House Cannot

I read Paul's books in the evening. The shipwreck books, of course. The same chapters I have read forty times now. The repetition is the comfort. I am not reading for new information. I am reading because the act of opening Paul's books and turning Paul's pages is a form of sitting in the room with him. He is not in the room. The book was in his hand. The book is in my hand. The hands are connected through the book. Peter called from Chicago. He sounded thinner than last week. He said work was fine. I do not believe him. He said his apartment was fine. I do not believe him either. He asked about the dog. He asked about the lake. He told me he loved me. I told him I loved him too. I told him about the bread I was baking. He said he could almost smell it through the phone. We hung up. I stood at the sink for a long minute. I did not know what else to do. Sophie texted a photo of Mira eating cereal. Mira's face was covered in milk. The photo was lit from the side by morning light and the smile in it was uninhibited and full and I could not stop looking at it. I printed the photo. I taped it to the fridge. I have a system on the fridge now: a column for each grandchild, a column for each great-grandchild, photos rotated weekly. The fridge is the gallery. The gallery is the proof. I cooked Cardamom bread this week. The dough is enriched with butter and milk and egg, scented with cardamom that I grind fresh from the seed. The bread rises twice — once in the bowl, once braided on the pan. Forty-five minutes at 350. The kitchen smells like Christmas-coming. The bread is best the day it is baked. The second-best is toasted with butter on the third day. Damiano. The kitchen back-room I have known for over twenty years. The pot. The ladle. The faces. Gerald. The work continues. The work is the same work it has been since 2005. The continuity is, I think, the gift the Damiano Center gives me as much as the gift I give it. We hold each other up. Erik's house is empty now. The Fifth Street house has been sold (the new owners are a young couple from Hermantown, they are kind, they have promised to take care of it; they will paint the walls and tear up the carpet and the kitchen will become someone else's kitchen and I have made my peace with this, mostly). Erik's own house in Lakeside is being cleared out. I helped on Saturday. I packed Erik's coffee mugs. I held one for a long minute. I put it in the box. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. I have been reading the Bible more lately. Not in any new way. The same passages I have known since confirmation class in 1977. The Sermon on the Mount. The 23rd Psalm. The book of Ruth. Whither thou goest, I will go. The repetition of the verses is its own form of prayer. The verses do not change. I change. The change is held by the unchanged words. It is enough.

The cardamom bread was for the week—for the smell of it, for the rising, for the forty-five minutes of oven warmth while the house was quiet and Peter’s voice was still fresh in my ear. But on Saturday, after Erik’s house and the coffee mugs and the long drive home, I wanted something that came together fast and still felt like care. Cherry turnovers are that. Puff pastry from the freezer, a can of filling, a hot oven, a drizzle of glaze: the kind of thing you can make when your hands need to be doing something and your heart isn’t quite ready to do anything harder.

Cherry Turnovers

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 1 package (17.3 oz) frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed (2 sheets)
• 1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• All-purpose flour, for dusting

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 400°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Cut the pastry. On a lightly floured surface, unfold each thawed puff pastry sheet. Cut each sheet into 4 equal squares for 8 squares total.
3. Fill. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of cherry pie filling into the center of each square, keeping it away from the edges so the seal holds.
4. Fold and seal. Fold each square diagonally, corner to corner, to form a triangle. Press the edges together firmly with your fingertips, then crimp all the way around with the tines of a fork.
5. Egg wash. Whisk the egg with 1 tablespoon of water. Brush the egg wash evenly over the tops of all the turnovers. This gives them their golden color.
6. Bake. Arrange turnovers on prepared baking sheets, spaced at least an inch apart. Bake 18–20 minutes, until deeply golden and puffed. Rotate pans halfway through if your oven runs uneven.
7. Make the glaze. While turnovers bake, whisk powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla together until smooth. The glaze should fall in a slow ribbon from the spoon; add milk a teaspoon at a time to thin if needed.
8. Glaze and cool. Let turnovers rest on the pan for 5 minutes, then drizzle glaze over each one. Serve warm or at room temperature. They are best the day they are baked.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 385 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 55g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 215mg