SEVERE WINTER STORM WARNING. HEAVY SNOWFALL CONTINUES. AVOID UNNECESSARY TRAVEL.
The weather app had been chiming all afternoon since it was announced that the US would be hit with a snowstorm over the weekend.
“Crippling ice, huh?” I muttered as I muted my phone, watching the forecast update itself every few minutes as if it were in a cute back-and-forth with the impending storm. Outside my apartment window, snow continued to fall, collecting on the ledges of buildings and dropping onto the concrete in puffy clumps. My kitchen was quiet, except for the gentle crackle of the candle’s wick as it continued to burn.
The cinnamon candle on the counter had burned long enough for the scent to travel to my bedroom, and for a moment, the air felt warmer than it was. It pulled me back to a different kitchen–one crowded with clattering pans and anticipation.
Mom’s cinnamon twists.
I used to hate the cinnamon twists Mom made because they weren’t sweet; too plain for my five-year-old palate. She never laced them with a generous sprinkle of sugar, so what we ate were essentially warm knots of bread streaked with sandy, bitter cinnamon.
Mom would be in the kitchen, my brother standing next to her with eager eyes, while I sat across the counter on the creaky wooden stool. Nick never liked loud noises, and when it came time to open the finicky cardboard tube, he’d stick his fingers in his ears and run to the other side of the kitchen, watching us and waiting for the familiar pop! before deeming it safe to come back.
“Your gor1 is such a scaredy-cat.” Mom teased.
“No, I’m not!”
The dough came out of the cardboard tube, uncoiling onto the counter in a pale sheet. Mom smoothed it flat with the heel of her hand, pressing just enough to even it out. When she shook the cinnamon over the dough, it would always fall unevenly, so some splotches of brown were always heavier than others, but she never bothered fixing them.
She’d cut the dough into strips with a dull knife, the blade leaving faint ridges behind as she sawed gently. I’d watch as she lifted two strips at a time, crossing them over each other and twisting them slowly until they held their shape. She’d pinch the ends together before nodding to herself and moving on to the next two strips. Flour dusted the cuffs of her sweater, and cinnamon stained her fingers.
The oven clicked as it heated, the kitchen already filling with anticipatory warmth. Nick would hover beside her, already asking when they’d be done, while I stayed on my stool with my legs tucked under me, mesmerised by the soft thud of dough against the crinkle of parchment paper.
“Until they’re golden brown,” Mom would say. “Just as the Pillsbury Dough Boy intended.”
We lived in a high-rise apartment in Beijing then, the kind where opening a window in the middle of winter felt like the cold was snapping against your skin: sharp and immediate. From thirty stories up, everything practically dissolved into white. It’s a winter wonderland, Mom would say as she kept an arm looped around me, keeping me steady as I stuck my arm out the window and tried to catch snowflakes on my palm. Dad couldn’t take us out to play in the snow in the middle of the workday, so we made do with drawing snowmen on fogged-up, “condensation-aded” windows (as Nick and I used to call them), with radiators blowing out puffs of warm air in the living room and cinnamon twists baking in the oven.
“One for mui,2 one for gor, and one for mami.3”
The three of us would sit by the window watching the snow fall as we munched on the twists. Mom’s spoon would clink gently as she stirred condensed milk into her tea, the floral smell of creamy Earl Grey lingering in the air as she took a sip.
Every winter since has felt thinner somehow, and Christmases blurred together in different cities, apartments, and kitchens that never smelled quite right. I could follow recipes, recreate meals, but the air never filled the way it once had. Cinnamon never lingered the way I expected it to.
New York was home now, and Beijing existed for me in fragments: the lift ride up to our apartment, the shock of cold air when the window cracked open, and the way snow erased the city until it felt like we were floating above nothing. In New York, winter felt more aggressive. White snow turned grey quickly, and streets became slush overnight. Still, there were moments, like this one,when the white outside my window mirrored the blankness I remembered from Beijing. When the air felt calm, the heater hummed lowly, and the smell of warm cinnamon moved through the apartment.
I pressed down along the perforated edge of the cardboard tube until the pale dough popped free, the sound softer than I remembered. I smoothed it flat with the heel of my hand, surprised by how familiar the motion felt. I shook cinnamon over the surface and let it fall where it wanted. I considered fixing them and adding sugar, but I didn’t. I followed the steps exactly, twisting the strips, pinching the ends together the way Mom did, nodding to myself without even realising. After the tray slid into the oven, the kitchen started to warm slowly. I waited.
The candle continued to burn down as I ate a plain cinnamon twist at the window. It was not sweet, and the cinnamon was still gritty. And yet, I didn’t mind.
Outside, snow continued to fall–my kitchen smelled like Beijing in winter, like Mom standing at the counter, with flour on her sweater and cinnamon on her fingers. Maybe the cinnamon twists were never meant to be dessert. Maybe they were meant to be something steadier, something that lasted.
And in that way, they finally tasted sweet.
1 Gor: Pronounced “goh”, Cantonese term for older brother.
2 Mui: Cantonese term for younger sister.
3 Mami: Cantonese term for mommy.