The above dramatically-lit pretzels were created as a result of a Facebook post by the superlative writer-friend Nick Lantz, chronicling his own homemade soft pretzel project. I solicited his recipe and took a crack at it myself. I love cooking the type of foodstuffs that are heavily marked up when purchased retail. The raw materials from whence soft pretzels come are cheap, cheap, cheap. The actual cost of producing them must be pennies, yet they cost so much more from a cart on the street, and even more from a kiosk at a stadium. So making them at home is like a big F-you to the craven forces of commerce. My ersatz Cinnabon recipe serves the same purpose: seizing the power from the great baked-goods conglomeration and returning it to the people! Cue "The Internationale."My pretzel project had mixed results. I think I was a bit cocky. Like, dude, if Nick Lantz, who is a poet, can turn out a rocking perfect batch of pretzels, I should be able to nail this one, right? So I think I let my dough rise for too long, making it overly elastic and difficult to stretch into the requisite long ropes. My ropes kept springing back into a shorter and more-squat shape, which produced difficulties in producing the pretzel form. The boiled (but not yet baked) pretzels were, as Nick had promised, slimy and disgusting, but he had reassured me that I should not fret about this. You can see from the picture that the end result looked puffy and golden and lovely, and tasted precisely like a soft pretzel ought to taste, but maybe a little better because HOMEMADE, beeyotches! I dipped mine in melted cheese. They are now called Nick Lantzels in my house and will be made again multiple times as I refine my technique. I will never be skeptical again about a recipe provided to me by another writer.
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