On the Road to Nowhere: Toonik Tyme!

The day I had been looking forward to since coming to Iqaluit finally arrived!! Every year there is a huge festival that takes place for about a week in April. There is so much going on during the festival that it's hard to catch everything.... Igloo building contest, seal skinning contest (yah I know), tea and bannock contest, dog sled races, etc etc. AND the GIANT CRAFT FAIR!! I was told this fair is a huge event and that so many people go that there is a massive line-up outside throughout the duration of the fair. I thought this fair sounded like a lot of fun but I really wanted to take part in it so I decided to bake a bunch of pretzels and sell them. I also decided to share my table with my friend Dan (one of my two best friends out here--the other being his fiancée Melissa) and he made miniature bagels and pins. So I don't know how I thought I would ever pull off making 300 pretzels (my original plan) but I did end up making more than my sanity could handle (but definitely not 300). I knew I wanted to make some salty and some sweet and when the time came to make the sweet ones (aka around 2am last night) I had a eureka moment: I stopped making the ever-so time-consuming pretzels and just started twisting the dough into these sticks that I then boiled, baked and then covered in cinnamon and sugar. Turns out my laziness paid off because people went CRAZY for them!! I started calling them "Narwhal Tusks" because they pretty much all had the shape of, well, a narwhal tusk--and the theme was very à propos. I was stoked that they were a huge hit!! Aaaaand I got to make some money! Woot! All of the pretzels sold too! The craft fair was so much fun!!!! I am definitely going to be making more of these tusks for future fairs! Other notable aspects of this pretzel frenzy: I stayed up until 5am making these pretzels!!! Probably ended up making about 140 in total. I also made the BIGGEST mess in the world (and cleaned it up at 5am... Very brutal having to clean dough remnants when all you want to do is sleep).

The work area.

Trying to grab any bit of space possible (these are the narwhal tusks-pre sugar and cinnamon). All of those dishes were used to make the SIX batches of dough.

I baked the pretzels in a mix of water and baking soda before baking them.. Not only is this messy but the water turns brown for some reason (can a scientist explain this to me please? Paul O I'm looking your way).

Dan at our table! WOOO!

Proud mama. Note the THREE kinds of mustards! Honey Dijon, Habanero & Honey Spicy mustard and standard Yellow mustard.

SLEEP DEPRIVED.

Aerial view. Oh and note the one massive pretzel aka the "it's-4am-and-there-is-no-way-im-making-15-more-pretzels" pretzel... Sold it for $15 buckaroos! Woot!