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When Matt was about Donovan’s age, he had a subscription to the old National Geographic World magazine. In one issue, there was a pretzel recipe. He and his mom tried it, and it became a family favorite. Yesterday, for the first time, Matt made pretzels with the kids, with my help. This time I remembered to take pictures of some of the steps. 
Pretzels
Ingredients:
1/8 c. hot water
1 pkg. dry active yeast
1 1/3 c. warm water
1/3 c. brown sugar
5 c. flour
extra flour
coarse kosher salt
baking soda
Directions
Heat the oven to 475 degrees. In a large bowl mix the hot water and yeast until the yeast dissolves. Stir in the warm water and the brown sugar. Slowly add 5 cups of flour to the mixture, stirring constantly. Continue stirring until the mixture is smooth and doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl. Put the dough on a lightly floured board. Dip your hands in the extra flour. Knead the dough until it is stretchy and smooth. Push it down and away from you with the palms of your hands. Turn the dough as you work.
Grease two cookie sheets very well. Sprinkle each with coarse kosher salt. Set the sheets aside. Pinch off a piece of the dough about the size of a golf ball and shape it like a pretzel (or not – whatever strikes your fancy!).
Fill a frying pan the pan, with water. For each cup of water in add 1 tbsp. baking soda. Bring the water to a gentle boil. Use a spatula to lower each pretzel into the frying pan. Count to thirty very slowly, then lift the pretzel onto the greased and salted cookie sheet. Repeat until all the dough is used.
Sprinkle some kosher salt on top of the pretzels and put them in the oven for 8 minutes or until the pretzels are golden.
