Pretzels

In honor of National Pretzel Day - for real - Philly Pretzel Factory is handing out free soft pretzels today at its more than 100 locations. Sixty are in Pennsylvania, 38 in New Jersey, with a handful in Delaware, and one or two in five other states. Locations can be found at www.phillysoftpretzelfactory.com/#/locations . No purchase necessary, the company says. Lancaster pretzel-maker H.K. Anderson also has a kind of giveaway. "The contest is simple," says spokesman Steve Robinson.

It's bad enough being a human in Philadelphia in the summer. Imagine being a soft pretzel: Twisted, sprinkled with salt, baked, thrown in the back of a delivery van, and set out on a steamy street corner. Yes, pretzels sweat, too. And since a city Health Department crackdown on vendor sanitation, combined with the usual July humidity, soft pretzels are sweating like never before. Sweaty pretzels? What's next? Hoagies with morning breath? Cheesesteaks with ring around the collar?

On a recent sunny morning deep in South Philly, the three Nacchio sisters - Norma, Florence, and Gloria - are sitting in the front office of their Federal Pretzel Baking Company, 638 Federal St., happily recalling great moments in soft pretzel history, when the confusion suddenly arises over Frankie Avalon's 40th birthday party pretzel. It arises somewhere between Florence's memory of the 300 soft pretzels that Federal baked for Sylvester Stallone's bachelor party and her sister Norma's recollection of the 100 soft pretzels that Federal baked for then-mayor Bill Green to send to the mayor of Kansas City after losing a bet on the Phillies in the 1980 World Series.

What we like about it: These large, soft pretzels, generously sprinkled with salt, and warm from the oven, hit the spot. Customers can drop by almost anytime - 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. - and see the pretzels hand-twisted and put in the oven in the small retail shop. Regular pretzels are 55 cents each, or $5.50 for a dozen. They're also available in four flavors - butter, garlic, cheese and cinnamon sugar. Flavored pretzels are 75 cents each. Owner Jim Stewart has been making pretzels since he was 14. He bought the business in 1993.

The first soft pretzel in outer space is scheduled to be launched today when the space shuttle Columbia rockets off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The pretzel comes from - where else? - Philadelphia. Actually, according to the National Aviation and Space Administration, there will be 21 soft pretzels from the Philadelphia Soft Pretzel Bakery in Kensington aboard the craft. "We express mailed them to NASA overnight," reports Jeanne Sidorick, secretary-treasurer of the company.

You won't find Herb Rosa's pretzels on any sidewalk pushcart or corner store counter. Won't find them hawked at parades or ballgames, either. Nope. The only place you can buy Herb Rosa's pretzels - as well as his pinchos, pastelillos and rellenos de papas - is in a little store at 5th Street and Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia. It's the same place the pretzels have been sold for the past 90 years or so, ever since a man whose name nobody recalls came to America from Germany with a pretzel recipe that down through the years hasn't changed an ounce.

ENRON, TOBACCO, HMOs, pharmaceuticals, airlines, Star Wars, conglomerates and other wealthies, what is their common bond? The answer is "Geo. Dubya" - their Santa in the White House - who will gift them with hundreds of billions in tax cuts, while the working stiffs and senior citizens on Social Security who can't afford health insurance, medication, food, utilities or entertainment get a $300 tax rebate. Then we are told to spend, fly and party to revive the economy. Who is Dubya kidding, especially in regard to his pretzel-and-fainting gig, Enron and who knows what else?

I've had an interesting adventure since we last spoke - a family trip to exotic Queens, one of the most diverse counties in the country, as tasty as I remember - and still mostly untainted by Brooklyn-style hipster-fication. We ate great Greek in Astoria at Agnanti Meze (rooster in sauce, anyone?) and dove into Flushing's vast Chinatown. But it was the Thai food at Ayada in Elmhurst that was a revelation. Wow! Such vibrant flavors. Homemade Issan-style "sour" sausage. Ground pork larb that radiated chile heat.

Police here are mounting an investigation, complete with drive-bys and stakeouts, to root out the culprits in a rash of predawn thefts. The crime? Crates, boxes and bags of fresh-baked soft pretzels have been disappearing from sidewalks and stoops near the shops where they are sold. The epidemic, as some here are calling it, has led merchants to change their routines in an effort to thwart the thieves. "Once in a while, merchants would complain that a delivery had gone awry, but nothing this regular, this consistent," said Deputy Chief Charles Brooks of the Haverford Township Police Department, which is investigating six incidents of pilfered pretzels reported since late November.

For those whose lives would have been diminished by not being able to pick up a Les's Pretzel along with a full tank of gas at Nolan's Exxon . . . And those who would have missed spotting the avuncular Les Hall behind the wheel of his silver Ford Granada, tooling around town on a delivery run . . . Be advised that the pretzels that captured the 1994 Best of Philly award will not be forced into extinction. They will not even be shoved underground. In an about-face, the borough and the Rittenhouse Homeowners Association have made a deal with Les and Debbie Hall, allowing the just-off-the-welfare- rolls couple to continue baking their nougat-filled, olive-oil-soaked pretzels.

Friday night's episode of Undercover Boss will have a distinctly local flavor — the salty, loamy taste of soft pretzels. That's because the subject of the show is Bensalem native Dan DiZio, the CEO of the Philly Pretzel Factory. The drama on the CBS reality show promises to play out differently as well. Usually, the corporate chieftains haven't lifted anything heavier than a phone their entire careers. So they tend to experience trouble once they take on disguises to perform their companies' most physically demanding, entry-level jobs.

When Dan DiZio sold pretzels on Roosevelt Boulevard and dreamed of opening his own pretzel bakery, he didn't know what the word "franchise" meant, or that having one store could ever happen. But now with 120 locations nationwide, the CEO and co-founder of the Philly Pretzel Factory will be on "Undercover Boss" Friday night (8 p.m., CBS 3). DiZio, 40, said he thinks every CEO should go undercover at his business and see how his employees work. "I was sleeping on bags of flour when we first opened up, but I became a corporate guy," DiZio said.

I've had an interesting adventure since we last spoke - a family trip to exotic Queens, one of the most diverse counties in the country, as tasty as I remember - and still mostly untainted by Brooklyn-style hipster-fication. We ate great Greek in Astoria at Agnanti Meze (rooster in sauce, anyone?) and dove into Flushing's vast Chinatown. But it was the Thai food at Ayada in Elmhurst that was a revelation. Wow! Such vibrant flavors. Homemade Issan-style "sour" sausage. Ground pork larb that radiated chile heat.

LANCE LEMPERT is a Philly guy. A Northeast High grad who grew up on Tastykakes and soft pretzels. So why will he be wearing a San Francisco Giants jersey to Citizens Bank Park in late July? Glad you asked. Lempert won a chance to meet Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum after entering a video in a contest sponsored by Red Bull in which contestants had to imitate the "Freak's" unorthodox pitching style. Lempert, who was a Daily News honorable mention in 2009, met with Lincecum in a 45-minute session in Scottsdale, Ariz., on March 2. "He was great," Lempert said.

ConAgra, the Omaha-based food-processing giant that owns Chef Boyardee, Peter Pan, Snack Pack, and other supermarket brands, says it has purchased Lancaster-based National Pretzel - which bakes private-label pretzels for chain groceries at its bakeries in Lancaster and Hanover, Pa., and Visalia, Calif. - from investor Michael Torporek's New York buyout firm, Brookstone Partners. Neither buyer nor seller named a price, but a Wall Street Journal report said a ConAgra official confirmed the total was more than $100 million.

Here's something you might not know about those two-for-a-dollar pretzels you just bought: They've most likely been dipped in a liquid solution of baker's lye. Baker's lye is caustic soda, a/k/a sodium hydroxide, a chemical that's been used to: relax hair, strip paint, unclog drains and (feel free to stop reading now) digest flesh. For pretzels, it adds a golden-brown finish and a surface that makes salt stick. Baker's lye is diluted in water, a concentration that's "very small parts per million," said Marty Ferrill, vice president of franchise development at Mayfair-based Philly Soft Pretzel Factory.

In honor of National Pretzel Day - for real - Philly Pretzel Factory is handing out free soft pretzels today at its more than 100 locations. Sixty are in Pennsylvania, 38 in New Jersey, with a handful in Delaware, and one or two in five other states. Locations can be found at www.phillysoftpretzelfactory.com/#/locations . No purchase necessary, the company says. Lancaster pretzel-maker H.K. Anderson also has a kind of giveaway. "The contest is simple," says spokesman Steve Robinson.

The Phils are trying out a new iPhone app that allows users to order food at CBP and have it delivered to their seats. Tony Lukes, Planet Hoagie, Bull's BBQ - you can get all of it without ever getting up. Technogeeks and the lazy will no doubt love this idea, while cranky Luddites will see it as an affront to baseball's old school ways of using your feet prior to stuffing your face. What say the two of you? I'm offended by your slur on cranky Luddites. You'll be hearing from my curmudgeonly attorney.

How the pretzel turns. When we last left Snyder's of Hanover Inc. , the nation's largest pretzel company was trying to buy a crosstown rival in the snack-food business, Utz Quality Foods Inc. But in November, that deal apparently fell apart when the Federal Trade Commission asked for more details on the transaction. On Thursday, the York County-based Snyder's found another partner to twist with: North Carolina's Lance Inc. , best-known for its sandwich crackers.

Ronald Frederico Sr., a retired baker for a Philadelphia pretzel company and longtime resident of South Philadelphia, died Tuesday. He was 71 and lived in Cape May. Ron worked for more than 40 years for the Federal Pretzel Co., retiring in 2000. He moved to Cape May in 2002 and lived in Victorian Towers, where he enjoyed playing cards. He is survived by his wife of 47 years, the former Helene M. Fijal, and a son, Ronald Jr. Services: Memorial Mass 1 p.m. Tuesday at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, 525 Washington St., Cape May. Friends may call at noon.