My Grandma's carmel rolls are famous in our family. She always bakes them for me when I visit and when word gets out Grandma's making rolls everyone comes around. However, this time Grandma was in hospital recovering so I decided to give it a try. No one in my family has been able to reproduce Grandma's rolls and they all looked at me sceptically when I said I wanted to make them. I heard story after story from aunts and cousins, all who had tried but failed. My Uncle Larry, also well known for his culinary creations, thought his recipe was pretty good too and so began the great carmel roll bake-off. The sceptical looks from my aunts changed to looks of horror, no one challenges Larry to a bake-off and wins. After sampling his home-baked ham and twice-baked potatoes I was beginning to realise the mistake I had made. This was an event no one wanted to miss out on and my Aunt Lois and Patty were on the phone in a flash, calling all the other aunts, uncles and cousins, converting my quiet lets-see-if we-can-make-Grandma's-carmel-rolls breakfast into a full on Dopheide family brunch. Larry was out the door without a sound - he wasted no time getting to the grocery store for the fixings needed for his carmel rolls. I started to panic.
According to Grandma its easy to make her rolls, a dash of this and a dash of that, but what exactly is a dash? Also, she doesn't own any measuring cups making it very difficult for the scientist in me to accurately measure out the ingredients. So the engineer in me (a little bit has rubbed off over the past 7 yrs) says near enough is good enough and dived right into the task of assembling the rolls with my Aunt Lois looking on and adding helpful comments such as "I'm not sure thats what Grandma does", "Does that look right?", etc. Set them up, leave overnight to rise, stick them in the oven in the morning, easy, right?
Me preparing the rolls
Rolls before and after rising - so far so good
Larry and I showing off our rolls
End result: 1/3 pans presentable, 3/3 pans edible, 36 carmel rolls consumed in under 2 hrs. I call it a success but were they better than Larry's? Undecided but one thing is definately true, as my cousin Jill says, "Its hard to be Grandma".
Frozen fields on the Dopheide family farm
Dopheide cows (fake and real)
Wind turbines in Carroll
Spending quality time with the family
Ever wonder what a cactus looks like on the inside, no? Me either, but when I stumbled up this one I was fascinated. Its made up of a whole lot of tubes running up along the body and arms of the cactus.
Our local sales rep Rob (above) demonstating the preparation process required before eating: remove clam from shell, pinch at white body with left hand and roll brown skin off of the neck with the right hand (like taking off a condom) - see that brown snot-like stuff dangling from his hands. Then eat, delicious? You've got to be kidding me!
Rob made up for the clams by taking us to Mike's in Boston's Italian district for cannoli and marzipan fruits. Can you spot the marzipan hot dogs? 
