heaven on a plate
The first time I made soft pretzels I was homesick. I was in Sunriver Oregon thousands of miles from the land of soft pretzels and Philly cheesesteaks. At 19 years old I moved to Oregon for a co-op to enhance my culinary knowledge. My mom was terrified. Supposedly my dad had to convince her just to let me go. I knew none of this and ASSUMED going was my choice. It’s true knowledge comes with age. And moms really don’t like sending their daughters thousands of miles from home to work in a kitchen. My poor mother.
Anyway turned out I was missing mom as much as she was missing me. So I went searching for the foods of home since I couldn’t have home . I started with soft pretzels, and they turned out so good my roommates began to like my homesickness. I made batches and batches and batches of the soft doughy treats.
When I finally escaped the high desert and made my way back to the PA, I continued the soft pretzel habit. They tasted a lot better than the frozen ones and seemed way more sanitary than the ones being sold on the streets of Philly. I made them for my family, and every time my roommate from Oregon and I got together we’d make sure soft pretzels were on the menu. Making them with anyone else was just a lot of work. She already knew how help.
See I am rather a pain to work with when I’m baking. I like to get in, do what I need to do, clean up, and move on, while eating for the next couple of hours. My friend knows this. She helps where I need it, cleans up, and then we eat.
Pretzels baking may have started out as a way to combat my missing Pennsylvania, but it quickly turned into a way to fight the homesickness of our high desert home. Because of Boston and Emerson taking over my life, I haven’t had much time to bake pretzels lately. But my pretzel making partner is moving to California after graduation and the thought of losing that quality partnership sent me running to facebook to schedule a pretzel date. Today was D-day.
We tried a new recipe and I decided that I was sick of kneading by hand. This is the year 2010 folks. Matt had a bread maker he bought at a yard sale for $5, so we let that do all of the work. I poured everything in and turned it on basic dough. I let it go until it started the second kneading cycle, and the dough was perfect. I made some into pretzel bites like the recipe pictured, some into regular soft pretzels, and I made some into pretzel hotdogs. Just roll some dough into a snake and wrap it around the hotdog. Delicious and hard to resist. Ask Matt. He went for a run and then ate his fill of pretzels, telling me over and over how I need to do this more often. And somehow I just knew he would never be able to learn the art of helping like my friend had.
Happy Eating!!!
Emily
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