How do you like my buns?

Around this time every year I am confronted by the absence of hot cross buns in The Netherlands. Why would any population deny itself the life-enhancing combination of yeast, cinnamon, sultanas, obscene lashings of sugar glaze, it’s sweetness perfectly offset when slathered with salted butter? When questioned, the Dutch claim that their krentenbollen or currant buns are an appropriate substitute. Obviously, this is laughably misguided. 

Krentenbollen are not acceptable as a hot cross bun substitute

They are insipid, unspiced, unglazed, and ubiquitous. The buns that is, not the Dutch. Being available all year round, krentenbollen deny consumers the anticipatory excitement of a seasonal product, to say nothing of the pious culinary virtuosity that comes with consuming a product infused with religious symbolism.

I am far more inclined towards the Dutch Easter bread, which at least recognises the life-enhancing combination of yeast, sultanas and obscene lashings of sugar glaze. It has no cinnamon or other spices, but it more than makes up for that with the addition of a core of sweet almond paste and a generous scattering of toasted almonds on top. 

Paasstollen

It comes in a box decorated with rabbits and eggs. I consume dozens of these Paasstollen every Easter in an attempt to overcome my sadness at not having ready access to hot cross buns.

However the Paasstollen loses all credibility as a hot cross bun substitute because as far as I can see it is exactly the same as the Dutch Christmas bread, which is a delicious combinations of yeast, sultanas and obscene lashings of sugar glaze. It has no cinnamon or other spices, but it more than makes up for that with the addition of a core of sweet almond paste and a generous scattering of toasted almonds on top. It comes in a box decorated with fir trees and snowflakes. The box seems to be the only thing distinguishing a kerststollen from a paasstollen.

I admit that having a backup plan for unsold Kerststollen reflects a certain economic aptitude that is regarded highly by the thrifty Dutch.  It also shows an awareness of supply chain management that can only come from having been a mercantile powerhorse for centuries.

But be that as it may, I would still like a hot cross bun on Good Friday.

4 January in a Sydney supermarket

This year, I have been anticipating the joyous consumption of a hot cross bun since January 4. On that day, I walked into a Sydney supermarket. I had escaped from a surreal world where devastating bushfires raged and we were all trapped in an open-air sauna that surely heralded the end of the world. Under such circumstances, it’s fair to say I was very hot and very cross. So imagine my surprise when my eyes settled on a shelf which only seconds before had supported several dozen unsold Christmas puddings. But in place of puddings, I saw bags of plump and spicy hot cross buns. These particularly premature buns were laden with chemical preservatives and sealed in plastic bags. They would have stored perfectly well for three months had I brought some back to The Netherlands with me. But they would also have inevitably brought culinary disappointment so instead I resolved to make my own when the time came.

And so it came. Good Friday 2020 in The Netherlands. Outside the coronavirus pandemic rages and we are all trapped in an open-air infectious diseases ward that heralds the end of the world as we knew it. One of few things that could have got me through Good Friday was a hot cross bun slathered with salted butter.

Inspired by the many (secretly really annoying) #isobaking posts on my social media feed, I decided to surprise my housebound family and make a batch of HCBs. Spoiler alert: a comedy of errors ensured it didn’t happen.

First, having resisted the trend to panic buy, and with three supermarkets within a five minute walk of my house, I maintain a relatively sparce pantry. On Good Friday I could scrape together a little over a cup of plain flour; the recipe insisted I find three and a half more. Unfortunately, flour is now a rare commodity. I blame the smug #isobakers. But I set out on a mission that I was confident fell into the “essential travel” category.

As I suspected, the first of my three immediate supermarket options was a flour-free zone. I walked to the second and much larger supermarket. A man loitering at the door asked me for 50 cents. I apologised for having no cash. He yelled at me and told me to go to the cashpoint. I considered the chance of withdrawing a 50 cent coin from the cashpoint, and instead decided to apply some Corona kindness and purchase some groceries for him. I was about to ask him what he’d like me to buy but he strode past me and made for the alcohol aisle. He grabbed a can of beer and with a distinct absence of Easter spirit, stomped angrily back outside. He was clearly untroubled by his cash flow situation and felt disinclined to stop at a checkout. It was 9.30am. I briefly considered picking up a nice bottle of breakfast wine and an extra-large paasbrood.

Foolishly I proceeded to the flour aisle instead. Nothing. Someone started yelling. Through my flourless fog I realised it was a middle-aged fellow customer, and that I was the object of her yelling. “Where’s your basket???” she screamed. “WHERE’S. YOUR. BASKET????”. Louder. Frighteningly wide eyes. Getting wider. “YOU NEED A BASKET!!!!” Exclamation marks were visible above her furious head. I suddenly realised that I’d been so frazzled by my encounter with Breakfast Beer Man at the entrance, I’d neglected to collect a coronavirus-fighting shopping basket before I entered the store. I’m highly sceptical that a plastic shopping basket will shield us against coronavirus, but Breakfast Beer Man had thrown me off my normally impeccable coronavirus game. In the face of The Basket Wench’s fury, I scurried away, flourless. And quite rattled. And thinking that two bottles of breakfast wine might be a good investment. I decided to persist with the original plan. It paid off, or so I thought.

At the third supermarket I was faced with the giddy choice of spelt flour, quinoa flour and …is that…lentil flour??? Is that even a thing? It’s now beyond obvious that I should have opted for breakfast wine at that point. But I bought the spelt flour and hurried home with my last ditch, confidence-sapping, gluten-free gamble.

A failure to froth was the next sign of impending doom. Yeast plus sugar plus warm milk should generate a magical foaming and frothing as the yeast activates. It hints at the pregnant potential for dense dough to become a light and fluffy delight. I ignored the clearly unreactive yeast. I did not have the emotional fortitude to return to a supermarket to purchase more and begin the process anew. Big mistake. Big, big mistake. I melted, whisked, sifted, mixed and then spent a cathartic ten minutes kneading. I produced a satisfying ball of dough and left it to rise. The only thing that expanded at all was my own self doubt.

Stubbornly, I formed twelve balls of dough and put them in the oven, completely forgetting to decorate them with crosses. Earlier, I’d had the rather brilliant idea of piping angry faces onto each bun. I was looking forward to posting my own #isobaking photos with the caption “Prolonged isolation has produced seriously cross buns this year”. Oh how we would have all chortled. If I’d remembered.

My #isobakingfail

Instead, I produced twelve hot uncrossed rocks. Twelve hot uncrossed inedible rocks. No paasbrood. No breakfast wine. It was a very Bad Friday.

It’s now Easter Sunday and I have absolutely no culinary aspirations whatsoever, other than to eat my way through the three large bags of chocolate eggs that I purchased yesterday. And perhaps to figure out what to do with 400 grams of spelt flour. Any ideas, smug #isobakers?

My covert COVID thoughts. Day 8.

We were just starting to enjoy being empty nesters. But in hindsight, the strategic decision that Ned Nederlander and I made this time last year to downsize our nest is looking very unwise. 

A mere five months after Kleine Jongen flew off to a distant university, he and his brother, with much dramatic squawking and flapping, returned to the new nest to face the coronavirus in the bosom of their family. Admittedly, having encouraged their return, any remorse and regret on our part will need to be carefully managed – nay, deeply hidden.

We’re in no doubt that ruffled feathers are inevitable. Sadly but predictably, it seems that I am the first in our overfull nest to have my feathers ruffled.

In my defence, the changes wrought by coronavirus have been particularly cruel for me. Until two weeks ago, I was a woman spoiled by the quiet rhythms and pliant freedoms of working from home. My gentle cat sat softly on my keyboard from time to time to announce that I deserved a break and that she deserved to have her head fondled.

Life was grand. Although I always missed the energy and camaraderie of a physical office, I’m proud to say I could work an online video meeting like a boss, years before the rest of the world’s office workers realised that zoom wasn’t just something you did to a photo.

I had a choice of excellent cafes within easy walking distance of my home office. My laptop and I could wile away a few hours in any of them. I had several inspirational girlfriends willing to share what I describe to the tax office as working lunches. Or perhaps they were shirking lunches; I can’t remember anymore. It was another lifetime. Whatever they were called, when I returned to my empty home office I had a choice of unoccupied beds on which to indulge in post-lunch deep thinking.

Things have changed dramatically. I am suddenly forced to share my work space with three other adults, with quite some associated loss of control. The monitor that gave me such an air of quiet professionalism has been seized as a Call of Duty command centre. Every morning I find empty beer bottles and supermarket pizza crusts on my desk. When interrogated, no one knows how they got there. Meanwhile, Ned Nederlander has staked a claim on more than half of the family dining table. My shirking working lunches are lurking in a distant life. All this change makes the cat understandably traumatised and more needy than ever.

Ned has phone calls about bizarre topics for an average of 7.94 hours every day. My board room is now an indoor football arena. I put a notice in the kitchen that says “Your mother does not work here. Put your own cups in the dishwasher” and some lark crossed out the first sentence. I noticed with horror that unidentified forward-facing users of our unisex toilet were obviously prone to dripping. I provided a helpful sign on the wall imploring them to “Shake well after use”. My pleas continue to be ignored.

Also, everyone in my quarantine orbit believes they will die if they don’t eat three or more meals a day. They turn the kitchen upside down every lunchtime, perhaps searching for the workplace cafeteria, the uni bar or at least the Salad of the Day. They have no idea that three digestive biscuits, a stick of celery and a spoonful of peanut butter taken straight from the jar will keep them going until dinnertime. Added bonus: the kitchen won't look like a nuclear blast zone.

My treasured corner office with the view is now shared with two sweet work experience kids who keep interrupting me to show me funny memes of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. They play inappropriate but amusing YouTube videos at unnecessarily high volumes. They have flirtatious phone calls with mysterious callers. I grit my teeth at the unrelenting tappety tappety tap tappety tap tap tappety on their phones and accompanying chuckles as they continue to indulge in their digital lives. I am living in a virtual episode of The Office, without the wit of Ricky Gervais, but with an unscripted soundtrack of offensive rap music. 

Occasionally I see unexpected value in my new situation. My family are the in-the-flesh colleagues that I missed when life was “normal”. Ned offers cups of tea before dashing off to another loud phone call. Other Q-colleagues share their secret stash of wine gums. Incredibly, one of the work experience kids can fix IT problems without leaving the sofa and without looking up from his own screen. It’s nothing short of a miracle and well worth the eyeroll and sigh that accompanies such assistance. Occasionally my Q-colleagues show interest in what I’m working on. Initially this threw me into a guilty tizz. But I soon learned to have multiple tabs open on my laptop so I can flick to a productive-looking one when someone approaches my desk. My favourite decoy is a highly complex spreadsheet that I once used for holiday planning. It’s worked so far.

When I rhetorically cry “Where are my headphones?” three seconds before a scheduled group call, someone nearby actually answers. Admittedly they just say “I don’t know”, but I’m overjoyed at such unfamiliar human interaction in my work life so I thank them for caring and tell them I appreciate their efforts. 

Before coronial quarantine, such queries merely led to my inadvertently waking the cat. She would jump excitedly onto my keyboard right at the moment I joined the meeting, often with her bum directly in line with the camera. She seriously undermined my professional credibility. The cat is a key reason I never turn my camera on during video meetings; I claim pathetically that my camera does not work and mumble something about a previous incident involving a rolling pin, a slingshot and a small child. 

But the real reason for my camera shyness is that remote meetings offer an excellent opportunity to do a quick yoga session. A downward-facing dog, a prolonged tree pose and a sun salutation are a huge boon to creative thinking. Those of you still inexplicably excited by the novelty of home video conferencing will adopt similar tactics within days, I promise. You will soon be relieved that you no longer have to remind yourself to stay seated throughout the call, lest a pair of pyjama pants be inadvertently revealed below your carefully chosen upper body business attire. Plus you’ll realise that the bookshelves behind your colleagues are mere props for making you think they are more intellectual than they really are. No way have they read that. Or that.

A “broken camera” also negates the need to control one’s eye-rolling and forehead-palming tendencies. Even in normal operating conditions I find that exceedingly helpful. As we plunge more deeply into this coronial crisis, I predict that we will all need all the help we can get.