Bowtie #36

PRETZELS!!!

I used to live in a town called Lititz, in Lancaster County, PA. Before I lived there, we would visit our family there in the summers, and we would always stop at this little pretzel bakery that was the first commercial pretzel bakery in the US. Fitting that it would be in a German part of the country.

It specializes in dark crispy sourdough pretzels, like the ones you get from Snyders but better, or Martin's, but thinner. You could go in the back and practice rolling and tying pretzels. I think the story goes that there is a religious meaning for the shape, and that it represents the folded arms of a child praying.

I went back to that area a year or two ago and discovered an absolutely top-notch pretzel, from a company in Ephrata. It is crispy but tender and has the perfect salt (amount and type). I am obsessed with getting pretzel salt right; it can't be large sea salt or fully-developed crystals. The kind I prefer has a crumbly texture and is opaque. My pretzels need tons of salt, so I can knock it off to my preference.

I didn't used to live in a town that had the first commercial lightning bakery in the US, but I still enjoy the lightning bolts on the back side of this tie. I have this same print in blue, and that will be coming soon.

This fills the bow-tie niche of polka-dots without being exactly polka-dots.

I wore this on May 20th and 21st.