My thoughts were drawn to my grandmother the other day. I never knew her very well beyond the self-interested childhood sphere of age eight, when she died quite unexpectedly just after her 50th anniversary. But there was one fact I could grip with stark clarity: she was the wife of a missionary. She married my grandfather fairly young and traveled with him extensively, going so far as to raise her own children in another country thousands of miles away from her friends (and possibly any family, not that I understood her to have any happy connections). It was baffling to me for many years. I was a progressive liberal and a budding feminist with a strong streak of individualism. What could possibly motivate a woman to up, marry, travel hell-knows-where at the whim of a man who is now practically the epitome of far-right religious Midwest values, and then have three children? And how could this person possibly be related to me? It seemed impossible that we shared the same genes.

I huffed it off as differences in the times, and, for the most part, that’s probably true. But as I got older, little incongruities in this image of my grandmother nagged me. For one, she later became a teacher of English literature—and not just Austen, Brontë and the gothic romances some girls obsess over, but Shakespeare! It piqued my curiosity. Then one day my aunt Carol spilled that my grandmother was a fan of baseball. Apparently this mild mannered homemaker could shout at the T.V. just as much as my Dad and I when we were watching NFL game. How odd… and totally unlike the grandmother I knew (or thought I knew).

So as I was remembering this and preparing food for Game I of the World Series, my mother called. I asked her about grandma and this baseball obsession. She said, "Mom would sometimes refuse to go to church because she wanted to see a game." I was a little stunned, but secretly snickering. What a riot! The perfect mother and wife of a preacher—missing church for baseball! Then, as I was entertaining the pleasant notion of what games grandma and I might have bonded over, I asked, "What team did she root for?" "The Dodgers."

Oh.

Well, I guess that means we’d have had something to argue over, at least.

In honor of the Phillies (and I’d like to think, the memory of my grandmother), we made scali rolls and stuffed ’em to resemble a Philly cheesesteak. I thought of tinkering with the recipe for something a little more modern and interesting; I even saw a pretty cool chimichurri rendition of the cheesesteak on Food Network. I eventually settled for traditional and simple, even to the point of unhealthy. After all, while I could hardly call this a Philly cheesesteak (last I checked this is Los Angeles), there are some things you just don’t mess with—especially during the opening of the World Series. So I enlisted help. Tyler, my resident expert on what cheesesteak is all about, prepared the steak and fillings with a few tips from yours truly. Then he described to me the phenomenon otherwise known as the Amoroso roll. I did my own research online and found out that certain businesses in Los Angeles actually import the Amoroso roll from Philadelphia just to get the cheesesteak right. Interesting. Time to break out the baking gloves.

I’d like to say the rolls were a tough job, but I got a few tips from the folks over at The Fresh Loaf. They pointed me to the Scali Bread recipe over at the King Arthur Flour web site. Scali bread is a Italian-style New England bread, so that sounded about right for my purposes. Once I procured all the appropriate ingredients (including a fresh bag of the dreaded all purpose flour), I went straight to work. The dough was dead easy. There was hardly any kneading, and the dough itself was moist but not nearly the mess a whole wheat struan is. I felt like I was in a bread making class for wimps. To top off the experience, I even tried out my new perforated french loaf pan from Williams and Sonoma; I sprayed the pan with a little oil, covered it with parchment paper, sprayed a little more oil, and set the shaped rolls on top for a second rise. The air was cool so, altogether, the first and second rise took the entire estimated 180 minutes. That’s about an hour and 20 minutes longer than the fermentation periods of my 100% whole wheat breads. I had so much time on my hands, I nearly fell asleep reading. When the rolls were ready to bake, I didn’t even need an egg wash or a steam bath. The way Tyler described them, I was pretty sure neither of those steps were a factor in an authentic cheesesteak roll.

The rolls came out of the oven after just 15 minutes. One was 11 inches long, the other 9 inches; the shape was just about right, if perhaps a little more like a torpedo and less square than desired. Both rolls had a very small, slightly browned crust as per The Expert’s instructions. The interior was soft, but not weak. Tyler only logged one complaint: the inside should be fluffier. I pondered this afterward and realized we cut the rolls open just 20-30 minutes after baking. Whole wheat breads need at minimum two hours of cooling to fully develop their crumb and flavor. (I should know; as a hungry baker, I’ve prematurely sliced at least several loaves.) I can’t say with any real certainty how cooling time affects an all purpose loaf, but I imagine there’s some similarity—especially since I erred on the side of underbaking rather than overbaking. So next time allow adequate time for the cooling period. That aside, it’s possible the cooking time or the dough formula is slightly off, but further experimentation is necessary to determine the cause of inadequate fluff.

The filling was delicious, if made with less provolone cheese (4 slices) and top round (1 lb) than appropriate for the size of the rolls. (No we didn’t use cheese whiz, you grease monkeys.) Tyler stuck the meat in the freezer for 20 minutes, sliced the meat as thin as possible, and marinated the slices with steak sauce overnight. We cooked the meat, onions, and (my) mushrooms on a cast iron griddle, and were generally very happy with the results. The meat could have been even thinner, and steak sauce isn’t exactly the right marinade, but at the very least—dinner was great, and we didn’t jinx the Phillies! Lee was smokin’ through most of the innings and that backhanded catch was hilarious.