I first encountered the Fair Cinnamon Roll two years ago while visiting the fair with my in-laws. We'd already eaten our share of the usual fair food and were feeling kind of bloated from it, but spied the cinnamon roll stand on our way out. The wife and I bought a roll to share, but didn't actually eat any of it until we'd been home for an hour or two. Upon having our first bite, we knew we'd made a grave error in judgment. Not because it was cold, mind, but because if we had known how amazing these giant sugar-coated balls of heaven truly were we would have bought several more. To get more, we would have to pay upwards of $7 just to get into the fair, then another $5 a pop for each roll. It was quite an expensive endeavor, but dammit we were addicts now and had to have them! I finally wound up bribing Mrs. A to buy three cinnamon rolls when she went to the Fair to work the literacy booth. The wife and I each had one and we generously gave the third to our next door neighbor.
I missed out on the rolls last year because I was visiting my sister in Austin, but I more than made up for it by eating my weight in Tex Mex while there.
This year I was determined to get my hands on at least one cinnamon roll and I knew exactly when I was going to do it.
Today.
See today was Free Day at the Fair. This doesn't mean you can get into the Fair free all day, but you can get in free between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Just in time for breakfast! So I left all guilt and the chain-rattling ghost of Dr. Atkins at the house and headed out at 8:15 to secure my cinnamon roll.
After negotiating my way through the free-parking lot, running over a bottle in the process thanks to the kindly direction of the parking staff, and maneuvering through the mass crowd of families who were headed in for free day with no intentions of leaving until they ran out of money or were forcibly removed by carnies, I was finally there.
I felt very lucky that only a handful of people were in line at the cinnamon roll trailer, waiting to make off with some of the earliest rolls fresh from the oven. I needn't have worried. The lines for this booth usually rival those of It's A Small World at Disneyland. And the rolls are always fresh because they have no time to sit around because of the demand. And, if you get close, you can watch their blessed creation...
The cinnamon roll guys roll out the dough right there in front of the big window. They lovingly put around 16 pats of real butter all over the surface of the dough, not skimping, before sprinkling the whole thing with a quarter inch of sugar and cinnamon. Then they roll that sucker up, slice it into huge chunks, put the chunks on a baking sheet, bake it for a while, then slather the whole piping hot tray in a gooey sugar/cinnamon icing. Eating one is like becoming David Bowman at the end of 2001. "My God, it's full of stars!"
"I'll have a coffee and two cinnamon rolls, please," I told the man at the window. He took a spatula and gathered up my rolls into little plastic containers, slid them into a white paper bag and poured my coffee. My total price was $11 and I knew already it would be worth every last penny of it.
I took my bag of cinnamony sugary carb-laden goodness to find a spot to sit and eat. The picnic tables were infested with teenagers waiting for the rides to open, so I decided to use the mostly uncrowded concrete front step of one of the exhibit buildings as my dining table.
Take a good close look at the full-size picture of my cinnamon roll to the right. A beauty isn't it? My stomach's been living for this moment for months now. This is to be the pinnacle moment of low carb-cheating for my entire year. All other cheats--including eating half a box of Golden Grahams, by myself, in one sitting, a month back--pale by comparison.
I take the first bite. It is every bit as good as I've been hoping it would be. I can taste the salt from the butter as it has a menage a trois with the sugar and cinnamon across my tongue. Only by eating one of these can you understand just how on the money all those scientific studies showing how men equate smells of warm cinnamon buns with sex truly are. Well... if you're a man, I guess. I take another bite. It's just as good as the first. I then proceed, bite by bite, through the entire roll over the course of six or so minutes.
While eating, I try to analyze the experience as best I can, cause it turns out there are highs and lows to it.
I've come to the conclusion that, for me at least, the first seven or eight bites were probably the best. Eight put me about half-way through the cinnamon roll. After that, each bite was diminishing returns. I'm really not a sweet-tooth at heart and I can only stand so much sugary richness before the endorphin flow begins to trickle off. At around four bites from the end, I could really see the logic in merely sharing one of these rolls with someone else. That way, you get the best parts of the experience and not so much of the whole long haul to the finish line praying for merciful death thing. The penultimate bite was painful, cause I could see the last one coming, and it was a big one. I didn't get sick or anything, but my poor sugar-deprived stomach was definitely feeling confused as to what to do with the mass influx of sucrose.
After that, I walked around the fair for a while, looking at all the other food booths that are just opening up. I knew that while I was in for free I really should indulge in some of the better edible attractions, but my gut was full of roll and I just couldn't imagine eating anything else, particularly something sweet. After twenty minutes or so, I went home with my other cinnamon roll, which I planned to offer to my sweet baby upon her impending return from Clarksburg. I even mentioned it to her on the phone tonight, secretly hoping she would turn it down.
"Noooo, I don't need any more sugar," she said. "You should eat it. Don't let it sit around in the congealed butter grease and get nasty."
I didn't need to be told twice. I popped that sucker in a bowl, nuked it for a couple of minutes and feasted on warm cinnamon roll that was almost exactly as good as the one this morning. I even ate some of it on the phone so she could live vicariously through me.
Frankly, I think she's a bit jealous of my near adulterous relationship with the rolls.
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