Two truths and some lye
Making pretzels with poison, 50-1, reading v. scrolling
Lye is a master multitasker. It unclogs drains, turns fats into soap, and, under high heat and pressure, dissolves a human body in three hours.
It’s also is a vital ingredient in turning yeast, flour, water, and salt into perfect, chewy, mahogany-brown soft pretzels.
Chemistry is weird and perfect and I wish they talked more about the link between dissolving dead bodies and baking pretzels back in high school. Today I might be a chemist or a baker or a crime boss.
When I was ten I tried making soft pretzels using a recipe from my Girl Scout Handbook 1. This recipe did not call for lye and the resulting pretzels were beige and bread-like. I expected a final product that tasted just like the warm, salty pretzels that slowly rotated on metal rods at the bowling alley and Sears. The Girl Scout pretzels did not deliver.
Nearly 40 years later, I decided to give it another go. I bought 2 lbs. of Red Devil Lye, fresh yeast, and good flour. The dough was worryingly stiff and hard to roll into thin smooth ropes twisted into the traditional shape. They rested for 30 minutes before being plunged into a lye bath—2 tablespoons of lye, 100 oz. of water in a non-reactive red plastic salad bowl. For thirty seconds they sat in the poison, patiently. Wearing surgical gloves and a K95, I scooped them out with a bright green spatula, gave them a careful little shake, and plunked them down onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
All of it seemed so insane. Who thought of this?2
In fifteen minutes my lye-dipped pretzels were perfect and worthy of the finest bowling alley. They were a rich, deep caramel brown with a chewy crust and soft pillowy interior. I’ve done it.
Isn’t it amazing that something so caustic can produce something so delicious? Remember that next time everything goes to hell.
Now what to do with the rest of that lye?
Last week I turned 49 and that’s an excuse to share my all-time favorite childhood photo. The scene: my roller-skating birthday party, 1982. My dad smokes White Owl demi-tip cigars in the snack bar of the bowling alley. My mom pulls out the camera and I have just enough time to fling a purple-velour-clad arm around my sweet pal, Scott. Off to the right of the Coke machine, out of frame, a dozen soft pretzels spin under the red light in their glass case.
Parting thoughts:
I’m going to AWP next month, a big conference for writers. First time. Will you be there? Let’s say hi? I’m going solo. I’m taking a flight that’s not direct. I need a little hi.
For my birthday I took off work and went to see American Fiction. Jeffrey Wright is a genius, the script is A+, and the entire cast is perfect. I can’t wait to see it again. The send-up of publishing is rich and real, and I cringed at the spot-on critiques of stereotypes, Hollywood, and white liberals. Writing this tiny paragraph makes me want to take a sick day and see it again.
Reading: I was so excited about 1000 Words by
that I accidentally but enthusiastically pre-ordered it from three bookstores. I’m dipping in and out and it’s marvelous. I’ve got four other books in rotation right now: Ringmaster by Abraham Josephine Reisman, a thrilling biography of wrestling’s Vince McMahon; Belly Up, a collection of stories from Rita Bullwinkel that are weird and amazing and inspiring—I wrote a tiny bit of fiction (fiction!) inspired by my reading; Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li—more excellent short stories; and wait, more short stories again with Kelly Link’s White Cat, Black Dog. The siren song of scrolling distracted me from reading last year. This year I’ve put a timer on it, ten minutes a day, and my attention span and reading time has skyrocketed.
Did I recently find and buy a used copy of my beloved Girl Scout Handbook? Yes. It’s a truly bananas miscellany. A pretzel recipe. A story about magical brownie elf creatures. A bio of the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Lowe, who went partially deaf when a grain of rice thrown after her wedding punctured her eardrum. That last tidbit instilled in me a lifelong fear of post-wedding grain revelry.
Possibly monks? https://www.history.com/news/the-pretzel-a-twisted-history
The Brownie Book! The wedding rice! Absolutely terrifying, and "bairns are a burden!"
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