Powdered Sugar Glaze

Christmas. The second Christmas where the restaurant exists, the first where it has been open for nine months and has served over 20,000 people and has become a place that strangers call home. Rivera's closed for Christmas Day — the one day all year the doors stay shut and the smoker sleeps and the staff is with their families. The fire rests. Even fire needs rest.

Christmas Eve: pozole at the Maryvale house. Elena's pozole, the tradition that stretches back further than memory, the pot that simmers on the stove while the family gathers in the kitchen and the candles glow in the windows and the Maryvale house smells like hominy and pork and chiles and love. I assisted. Sofia shredded cabbage and sliced radishes with the knife skills of a culinary school graduate. Diego ate tortilla chips on schedule — every four minutes, the question, the answer, the patience. Roberto sat at the kitchen table and supervised. He looked good tonight — better than October, better than the tired nights, the medication working, the holidays animating him the way holidays have always animated Roberto. Christmas is fuel for the man.

Christmas morning: cinnamon rolls from Duluth (shipped by Diane, baked by Jessica at 5:30 AM). The gifts. Diego: the dinosaur encyclopedia volume two (he has read volume one four times), a filmmaking kit for kids (a cheap camera, a tripod, editing software — because Diego has been making stop-motion videos with action figures and Jessica's phone and the videos are terrible and wonderful and possibly the beginning of something), and — the puppy. A golden retriever puppy, eight weeks old, named Fuego, because the Rivera family names things after fire and because Diego screamed "FUEGO!" when the puppy licked his face and the name stuck before Jessica could suggest something more dignified.

Fuego. A golden retriever in a house with a smoker and a grill and a man who drops food. The dog will live his best life. Diego held Fuego for three straight hours. Sofia held Fuego for thirty minutes and then asked if we could train him to fetch tortillas. Roberto held Fuego and the puppy licked his face and Roberto laughed — a real laugh, a belly laugh, the kind of laugh that Roberto produces rarely and which, when it appears, fills the room the way smoke fills a kitchen. Elena took a photograph of Roberto holding Fuego. The photograph will be on the Maryvale refrigerator by tomorrow.

At Elena's that afternoon, I gave Roberto his Christmas gift: a leather apron, custom-made, embroidered with RIVERA'S — FOUNDER. Not counter manager. Founder. Because Roberto did not just stand at the counter. Roberto founded Rivera's in 1982, on a cinder block grill, in a backyard in Maryvale, with a recipe and a fire and a son who was watching. The restaurant is the building. Roberto is the foundation. The apron says what has always been true: he started everything.

Jessica baked those cinnamon rolls at 5:30 in the morning — shipped from Duluth, but finished in our oven — and the glaze is what made the kitchen smell like Christmas before Diego even found the puppy. A powdered sugar glaze is nothing complicated, which is exactly the point: on a morning with a screaming eight-year-old and a golden retriever licking every face in the room and Roberto laughing that big room-filling laugh, you don’t need complicated. You need warm, sweet, and ready. This is the glaze we drizzled over those rolls, and it will be the glaze every Christmas morning from here on out.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons whole milk (or heavy cream for a richer glaze)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Sift the sugar. Sift 1 cup of powdered sugar into a medium bowl to remove any lumps. This step makes the difference between a smooth glaze and a gritty one.
Add liquid and vanilla. Add 2 tablespoons of milk and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whisk together until fully combined and smooth.
Adjust consistency. For a thicker glaze, add powdered sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. For a thinner drizzle, add milk 1 teaspoon at a time. You’re looking for a consistency that coats the back of a spoon but still flows.
Glaze while warm. Drizzle immediately over warm cinnamon rolls or pastries straight from the oven. The glaze will melt slightly into the rolls and set as they cool — which is exactly what you want.
Serve right away. Glazed rolls are best enjoyed fresh. Gather whoever is in the kitchen — puppy included — and serve.

Nutrition (per serving)

Powdered Sugar Glaze — The Sweet Finish on a Rivera Christmas Morning