What I learned from a pretzel: the value of food

Annie,
Before I begin, let me thank you for talking me off the Monsanto ledge. For a minute there I forgot that I am a dreamer but I'm not the only one.
Now, back to pretzels. I want to kick-off my summer cooking classes with a Pretzel and Mustard class. I was a mustard-making fiend in college (I lived in The German House after all) and have made pretzels before but it's been a while and I needed to practice.
My go-to bread book has a pretzel recipe so the kids and I gave it a shot. The dough was our typical approach and the kids did all the work on that end. Easy. But when it was time to shape, boil, and bake things got a little tricky. I could not get a nicely shaped pretzel. They were OK looking but not like what you see in the picture on the left. Funny enough, Sylvia was having a better go at it shaping her pretzels than I was. Not the knot, twist, and turn part but the rolling into a nice 12" snake that was about 1/2" in diameter. All that playdough experience, I guess.
I thought about all those soft pretzels sold on street corners in Philly for 0.50 cents. If I sold my pretzels for a quarter, my hourly rate would be somewhere around 0.78 cents an hour (calculating from mixing dough through baking). I won't be starting an artisan pretzel factory anytime soon.
My pretzel making day reinforced the value of food and what it means to me. It irks me when I hear what a bargain that piece of pork loin was on sale at the Acme. I do not approach food as a commodity. Some might argue that I can afford this luxury. Yes, Andre and I are fortunate to have good jobs and we work hard but we also prioritize our expenses. By living simply, we can afford to put great food into our most valuable possessions: our bodies.
BTW, I also learned pretzels are very forgiving. Our pretzels retained their shapes nicely when dropped into the simmering water and after baking, the shape was really OK. And the taste? Well, Andre and the kids thought they were just amazing.
XOMA