back in april i crashed my sil's enrichment roll making 101 party. she has a friend famous for her super-duper light flaky roll-your-eyes-back-in-your-head rolls, and having tried independently to make them before, i was fascinated to see how an experienced dough-maker produces these things. so i asked if i could take pictures. she wondered why kat (s.i.l.) had to bring such a nosy and embarrassing person to her house, but she was nice.  there are many shots of her experienced hands. unfortunately, i can't find the recipe. if i could only zoom the photo below, there it is!

here we see the roll dough being made in a nice bosch mixer. i hate them, but apparently you can't make a really big batch of rolls without it.

she's showing us how the dough is meant to feel tacky. it is the tackiest dough i ever met. 

then you have to let it grow for a while. there it is, on the right. 

i took a lot of these pictures, because i can't believe how sticky this is. when i made them, i had floured them into submission by this point. 

but then, me and yeast doughs have an uneasy relationship.

a dusting of flour

a gentle roll

a gentle prodding in the right direction

can you believe how casual she is about it? a drinking glass! i never would have tried that. and clearly she's explaining the finer points of this process to somebody as she goes on cutting. like when moms get a tissue and wipe their kids' nose without interrupting their conversation.

so she creates all these puffy little blobs

and now she's going to demonstrate how to shape them. only she did it so fast, i was glad i had the camera set on speedy shutter action. and she had to show me more than once.

that's my sister-in-laws pretty little hand. she's a little person, and spunky. 

she'll love that.

here's spunky little greta. she does credit to the name of greta.

so you cross over the little rope you made, eight inches or so.

then you tuck the ends from the bottom up and top down.

and if you're this woman, this is what you end up with. it's clear she's made a million of these. i didn't take a picture of mine. we took our misshapen rolls home and the kids wolfed them down before they cooled.

finally answered the question: could i photograph food like the pioneer woman?

answer: negatory. the lighting is my downfall. (it was snowing).