Those are some of the dumbest words that have ever come out of my mouth.
Why?
Because those words led me to attempt to make pretzels. Which, I attest to this day, was one of the most difficult and frustrating experiences of my life.
I shall set the scene for you. It is Fourth of July 2009. My parents have been cooking all day. Some one *thumbs pointed sharply at myself* thought it would be a good idea to make pretzels.
After all, I saw Alton Brown do it on the food network. I saw people do it at the mall. It couldn't possibly be that hard.
It is. It really, really is.
The dough is temperamental. I added too much oil and was trying to find the correct ration for at least a half hour after I should have been putting them in the oven.
You have to shape them. And when the dough is not made correctly this becomes VERY difficult. I ended up making pretzel rolls.
Then there is that nice brown top layer you expect. To get this you need to give the pretzels a quick "bath" in a mixture of water and baking soda. This is fine if you are experienced.
If not, you end up with a kitchen COVERED in baking soda.
Like I did.
No matter though, my pretzels were one quick bake in the oven away from being devoured. The timer beeped and I flung open the oven door. I triumphantly pulled out the baking sheet and announced "It's pretzels!"
They were pretzel like objects. Not quite the proper color. Not quite the proper shape. And, upon biting in, not quite the proper texture.
They were decent, but nothing to write home about*.
And it's a good lesson that just because some looks easy, or even sounds easy, it might but much more difficult than appearances lead on.
So the next time you find yourself saying that even YOU could build a better website.
Or make a better ad.
Or build a better mouse trap.
Try your hand at it fist. And then try passing judgement.
*Though it seems they were fine to write a blog post about. Har, har.