Dough!

Marianne,

I LOVE those pretzels!! And, I bet the kids loved being in the kitchen making them with you. Don't you just love dough. I remember when I was about 7 my best friend, Beth, moved away. I was heartbroken. My mom was always making bread and giving it to people, so I decided to make my own loaf for Beth and send it to her via the good ol' US postal service. My mom gave me all my ingredients, except the yeast (not really sure why she held back on this key ingredient). My mom always let me experiment in the kitchen. She had no rules for what I could and couldn't make and didn't mind messes. As I mentioned before, I grew up in the middle of absolute nowhere, which made cooking one of the only interesting activities I participated in. I made what I thought was a gorgeous loaf, except it wasn't really a loaf at all - just a hard loaf-shaped nugget, but I was so proud! I sent it to Beth in a legal envelope and she wrote me back telling me how much she loved it. Amazing how I knew at such a young age that one of the ways to express love was to cook.... And, I give full credit on that one to my dearly departed, beautiful, sweet mom...
Have a great weekend....we'll getting ready for our big New Mexico road trip!
xo