Soft Pretzels (German "Bretzen") for our Oktoberfest 2010 Party Recipe

My mother was born and raised in Bavaria. She met my father, who was stationed in Salzburg, Austria. They married in Salzburg in1954, and she moved to America. My mom became a US Citizen in 1957, but she hung on to her Bavarian heritage with pride. She came from a lineage of great cooks, and her grandmother owned a successful restaurant in Bad Reichennhall, Bavarian. I can remember my mother, at a very young age, teaching me how to make our family's favorite recipes. My mother passed on October 13, 2002. Since then, I have started a family tradition, of hosting an Oktoberfest dinner in memory of my "Mutti".

I don't need written recipes, because I can make them from memory. (One of the reasons I started my blog was to…