Twist and Shout: Pretzels and Dips for Super Bowl Sunday

When I think of soft pretzels, I envision days past when my young kids would ask for a cinnamon sugar pretzel at the mall, which always turned into a disaster as I frantically searched for enough napkins, wetting them with water from my water bottle to clean the cinnamon sugar mixture that went from ear-to-ear on their little faces all while instructing them to “not touch anything.” If it was just me at the mall, I would opt for grabbing a pepperoni pretzel because shopping took precedent over taking time to sit down and eat. We visited Wetzel’s Pretzels when we lived in Arizona and later Auntie Anne’s, but our pretzel days disappeared as the kids got older. On a business trip to Nuremberg, Germany a few years ago, everywhere I looked there were warm authentic pretzels calling my name. Then the other day my sister sent me a picture of the pretzels her 14-year-old son begged her to make. I decided to give it a whirl and determined that these easy-to-make pretzels would be a fun game day snack (or what the heck, dinner) for Super Bowl Sunday.