Hot Dog Buns — The Bread That Rose While the Soup Simmered

Week 510, and the dark arriving early, the kitchen warm against the cold, the soups simmering, the bread rising. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Marvin sleeping more; reading to sleeping Marvin; territory lost. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made chicken soup this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The soup was already going when I started the dough — that is how my kitchen works, everything layered, everything at once, because a woman who has been cooking since she was eight years old does not make one thing when she can make two. I had been baking these buns for years, long before they had any particular meaning, but this week they felt like the right thing: soft, yielding, something you can hold in your hand and offer to someone, something that rises in the warmth and asks almost nothing of you in return except the patience to wait for it.

Hot Dog Buns

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes (includes rise time) | Servings: 12 buns

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water (105–110°F)
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
• 1 tablespoon milk (for egg wash)

Instructions

1. Activate the yeast. Combine warm water, yeast, and 1 tablespoon of the sugar in a small bowl. Stir gently and let sit for 5–10 minutes until foamy and fragrant.
2. Make the dough. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. Add the yeast mixture and softened butter. Stir until a shaggy dough forms, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface.
3. Knead. Knead the dough for 8–10 minutes until smooth, supple, and slightly tacky. It should spring back slowly when you press a finger into it.
4. First rise. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
5. Shape the buns. Punch down the dough and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a log shape roughly 5 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing about 1 inch apart.
6. Second rise. Cover the shaped buns loosely and let rise for 25–30 minutes, until puffed and touching at the sides.
7. Preheat and egg wash. Preheat oven to 375°F. Whisk together the beaten egg and milk, then brush lightly over the tops of the buns.
8. Bake. Bake for 16–18 minutes until golden brown on top and hollow-sounding when tapped on the bottom. Transfer to a wire rack and cool before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 3g | Carbs: 26g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 198mg