My 12-year-old son creates some wacky board games. When he was younger, there was Pillow Fight, where players spin a wheel to collect pillows to smack people, build a fort, or knock down pins. Then there was Chick-fil-A vs. Canes, a game where players collect coins by buying, selling, and promoting menu items from Texas’ favorite fast-food chicken places—but if you get stingy and don’t pay your workers, they’ll go on strike and you’ll find yourself without food. Recently, his creations have turned into more sophisticated battle strategy games, played according to pages and pages of rules. 

For someone who’s always been painfully shy, board gaming is the language my son uses to engage with others. Sit down and play a board game with him, and after a few minutes he will reveal his personality in a way that he typically can’t in a classroom. That’s why I cried when I saw The Hobby. 

Premiering at South by Southwest (SXSW) on March 8, the character-driven documentary The Hobby takes its title from what those in the board gaming world name their larger community and culture. Writer and director Simon Ennis, an avid board gamer who got hooked while working at a video store, follows designers as they reveal their creative process and players as they find community in this world. 

Over the years, my family has collected two dozen games; we have a loose board game group; and we hang out at board game cafes. But The Hobby showed me how much bigger this world is. Toward the beginning of the film, masses of people from all backgrounds and walks of life descend onto the floor of the Gen Con, the largest tabletop game convention in North America, held every year in Indianapolis, Indiana. In this tight-knit subculture, where game designers and reviewers like podcaster Tom Vasel are treated like superstars, Vasel jokingly tells Ennis, “As soon as I leave, no one knows who I am.” 

In the film, Thi Nguyen, philosophy professor at the University of Utah and author of Games: Agency as Art, tells Ennis that “the hobby” embraces “those who don’t fit into this world too well.” Nguyen says in his book: “In ordinary life, we have to desperately fit ourselves to the practical demands of the world.” And in that world, where we are driven by constant demands to be productive, to finish tasks, to achieve—where playing a three-hour game of Settlers of Catan might seem like a waste of time—it’s easy to see why people find a reprieve in “the hobby.” Nguyen theorizes that there is a “motivational inversion” for hobbyists—unlike athletes or others who compete to win or achieve a certain goal, hobbyists see the goal of winning as a means to creative play, to socializing with others for hours on end. When Ennis asks players and designers what the most important aspect of “the hobby” is, they all say, “It’s the people that matter most” or “the shared experience.” 

From the bird’s-eye view of the board gaming world at Gen Con, Ennis dives into the lives of some serious players, including Mik, Starla, and Grant Fitch—an African-American family whose time with each other playing turned into penning reviews on social media and a family Youtube channel called Our Family Plays Board Games. Ennis also features his close friend and fellow member of his board game group Dan Corbett. Together with other friends, they survived the isolation of the pandemic by playing board games in Corbett’s cabin in the woods.

It is this experience that gets the competitive Corbett hooked, and the audience follows him while he prepares for and plays in the World Series of Board Games in Las Vegas. Like the World Series we’re more familiar with, tournaments at this World Series are highly organized events where professional commentators analyze games live on video, and winners receive chunky gold championship rings. Unlike the World Series we’re more familiar with, there’s no trash-talking from fans or sign-stealing from players—just a whole lot of admiration and love from fellow competitors. Corbett comes shy of winning a tournament, but Hanshi Li, a self-deprecating immigrant from Guangzhou, China, who met his wife in “the hobby,” takes the ultimate $25,000 award in the final game of the Viking-themed Blood Rage. Li says for him, “the hobby” is “the purest form of social interaction.” 

It is this unique and shared experience that game designers strive to cultivate when they build a game. The audience learns through the stories of both beginner and expert designers that anyone can create a board game about virtually anything. We journey with newbie designers like musician Candace Harris and soft-spoken John Hague, as they craft, test, and launch their games, which are as varied as the interests of their creators. Harris’ game Stage Left is a music-themed deck-building game and Hague’s The Last Summit a postapocalyptic political diplomacy game. Ennis also shows that the designers’ processes are just as varied: Blood Rage designer Eric Lang starts by playing with game pieces on his bed, while Elizabeth Hargrave built a spreadsheet of her scientific research on the class, genus, habitat, wingspan, nest type, eggs, food, and endangered status of birds to create the game Wingspan.

Perhaps the only distracting element of The Hobby was the character that bookends the film: a snooty, wizened curator from the British Museum, who only likes to play board games from antiquity. The board game snob is atypical among hobbyists. Overall, Ennis creates intimate portraits of diverse characters who are so earnest and open about their struggles, desires, and vulnerabilities that you find yourself cheering for them as they all proceed on their individual journeys. Openness, Ennis said later at a SXSW panel, is a hallmark of this community—and that shines through in the film. 

“The hobby,” Nguyen writes in his book, is a break from the indifferent and arbitrary world we seem to face: “In games, we can engineer the world of the game,” its rules, objectives, environment, narrative, and “the agency we will occupy to fit our desires.” 

It’s a kind of creative control that my 12-year-old son lacks in the broader world, as he navigates the increasing demands of homework, tests, and peer pressure, while we adults struggle to keep up with deadlines, bills, and everything else that makes us forget why we do the things we do. Thankfully, Ennis shows us that through “the hobby,” even if it’s just for a few hours, we can forget the incessant demands of the world, enjoy the company of others, and just play.

As the Twin Cities’ slam poetry scene rebuilds, BuckSlam — a new organization dedicated to the style of competitive poetry performance — has quickly established itself at the forefront.

Now, as its inaugural season comes to a close, BuckSlam is holding its first Grand Slam Finals, a championship for top local slam poets.

The top prize? $5 — a jackpot compared to the cheeky $1 (a buck! Get it?) awarded to the winner of BuckSlam’s monthly slams.

The finals start at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, at the Black Hart of Saint Paul, a soccer bar in the Midway. Competitors have qualified for the event by performing well at those monthly events throughout the past year or so.

The four top performers will nab a spot on the 2024 BuckSlam Poetry Team, which means access to slam poetry workshops, coaching sessions with professionals, a writers’ retreat and the ability to compete at regional and possibly national tournaments.

The Twin Cities have long had a significant presence in slam poetry, which itself only started in its modern form in the mid-1980s, said BuckSlam co-organizer Zach Goldberg. Soapboxing, a team from St. Paul, won the National Poetry Slam two years in a row in 2009 and 2010, other St. Paul poets competed on the world stage, and the influential publisher and media company Button Poetry was founded in Minneapolis the next year.

But the national poetry slam scene collapsed somewhat dramatically in 2018 due to a variety of financial and inclusivity concerns, and subsequent efforts to rebuild local slams were vaporized by Covid-19. The National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational and the local Button Poetry Live slam series have all disappeared in recent years.

So now, new regional slam organizations like BuckSlam and the Midwest Poetry Mash-Up are filling the gap. The Mash-Up, now in its second year, is set to take place in late April at the Strike Theater in Minneapolis and will feature competitors from around the country, plus from Canada and the U.K.

And, by the looks of it, both poets and audience members are excited for the slam resurgence. The March BuckSlam event at Boneshaker Books in Minneapolis was standing-room-only, Goldberg said.

For an organization that’s not even a full year old, BuckSlam’s leaders — a five-member collective of poets and slam organizers — have created what appears to be impressively solid infrastructure.

Every month since May 2023, the organization has held slam competitions at Boneshaker. Anyone can sign up, but there are only 10 or so performance slots during each event, so poets are selected at random, Goldberg said. (For fairness’ sake, if a poet’s name isn’t drawn two months in a row, they’re guaranteed a performance slot the subsequent month.)

The scoring process at BuckSlam events, like at many poetry slams, is also infused with spontaneity. Judges are not necessarily professionals nor even poets: They’re audience members, also chosen at random right before the slam begins.

Each member of this impromptu panel awards poets a score from 0.0 to 10.0, and those with the highest scores earn the most points — which in turn determines their standings during the BuckSlam season and their eligibility for events like next month’s Grand Slam Finals.

The point, Goldberg said, is to make poetry accessible and fun for everyone, even those who are not poets. After all, he pointed out, the audience is just as important to the slam atmosphere as those behind the mic.

“If you’re an audience member, it’s so much more participatory and vocal and celebratory than a lot of poetry readings or literary events I’ve been to,” he said. “Not to talk smack about anybody else, because I love those things too. But poetry slam feels like you’re at a sporting event. There’s a lot of cheering and shouting and yelling and clapping, and it’s just a more lively atmosphere.”

Springboard for the Arts, a St. Paul-based nonprofit, has taken BuckSlam under its wing through its incubator program, which helps creative organizations like BuckSlam access grants, donations, and other sponsorship opportunities.

“There’s a lot of interest in exploring what this art form is,” Goldberg said. “It’s a really great method of self-exploration and vocalizing your feelings and speaking truth to power in a room full of supportive people — and not in isolation.”

If you go

What: BuckSlam MN’s Grand Slam Finals, the concluding poetry slam tournament of its inaugural season.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 3.

Where: The Black Hart of Saint Paul; 1415 W. University Ave.

Cost: $5 suggested donation, but no one is turned away for lack of funds.

Age limit: All ages. Yes, the Black Hart is a bar; those under 21 will be allowed to enter the venue specifically to attend BuckSlam’s event but are asked to please check in with the bartenders.

Good to know: BuckSlam enforces a mask policy for audience members.

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The poet Emily Dickinson was an avid baker, and, on the back of a recipe card for coconut cake, she wrote these opening lines:

The Things that never can come back, are several —

Childhood — some forms of Hope — the Dead —

But while her gifts as a poet are clear here, she expresses the opposite of what baking can do. A birthday cake brings back the joy of childhood, maybe even raises hope, and baking beloved recipes from the deceased resurrects memories of them.

Even if the goal isn’t reclaiming what’s lost, the simple act of baking can conjure unexpected delight. When you’re preparing a meal and starting with salmon and potatoes, you end up with cooked salmon and potatoes. But when you’re baking, you start with a slew of powders, golden butter and an egg, and you end up with crackly-edged, chewy blondies.

If you’re a beginner in the kitchen, baking is an ideal entry point. Unlike cooking, there’s no pressure to make food that’s meant to sustain, no urgency from step to step. You can go at your pace, and the process can even feel relaxing. These five foolproof recipes are the best place to start: They require only a handful of tools and ingredients — and no experience. They welcome other seasonings and flavors, and guarantee something tasty. Make them all to learn the basics of baking, or try any one that appeals to you. Not only are they easy, but they also offer the satisfaction of dessert and the wonder at having made it yourself.

Baking Supplies for Beginners

Baking supplies for beginners. You don’t have to invest in an expensive electric mixer, stacks of pans or a kitchen scale – just a few items can get you started. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Joseph De Leo/The New York Times)

To make all five of these recipes, you need only:

• A sheet pan

• An ovenproof skillet

• An 8-inch square cake pan

• Two bowls

• A whisk

• A silicone spatula

• A set of dry measuring cups

• A set of dry measuring spoons

Start with just a handful of tools.

You don’t have to invest in an expensive electric mixer, stacks of pans or a kitchen scale. Danielle Sepsy, the chef and owner of the Hungry Gnome Bakery, remembers a childhood of standing on a stool next to her grandmother Rosemarie Marullo, who scooped flour with a coffee cup. Sepsy doesn’t recommend trying this at home and uses a scale at her bakery, but said, “If you have trusty measuring cups on hand, you’re OK.”

In fact, you can use dry measuring cups for liquids even though it’s a little tricky to not spill with them. (Liquid measuring cups don’t work for measuring dry ingredients, though.)

Shop for basic ingredients

Baked goods can incorporate everything from chiles to miso, but their foundation requires only a small group of essentials. Baking can be traced back to ancient civilizations, but the sweets here come from the style that spread from Europe to America and the world, built on flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, butter or oil, and, usually, eggs. Often, other dairy products or flavorings like vanilla extract and cocoa powder are used, and sometimes, not all of the basics are even necessary.

Bask in the precision

Baking can be perceived as stressful because it requires following a recipe, but that’s what can make it feel calming. “I actually have a lot of anxiety, and I started baking because it gave me a sense of control,” Sepsy said. “If you follow the recipe exactly, it’ll result in exactly what you want.” Even though she now weighs ingredients to run her professional kitchen, she uses regular measuring cups at home because it makes baking “more stress-free and fun.”

For simple baked goods like these, it’s fine if you end up adding a little too much flour or don’t beat the eggs enough. As long as you’re mixing and baking sugar, fat and starches as described in the instructions, you’re going to end up with something delicious.

Yes, you can personalize baking recipes

Some cooks don’t like baking because there doesn’t seem to be room for improvisation without risking a failure in the oven. Don’t mess with the base formula for the batter or dough, but do customize seasonings that don’t affect baking chemistry. Stir in different spices like cardamom or ras el hanout and add your choice of toppings or mix-ins. When making fruit desserts, use what’s in season (and on sale).

Birthday Cake Blondies

Birthday cake blondies. Think of these as a starter birthday cake to make for friends – or yourself. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Joseph De Leo/The New York Times)

By Genevieve Ko

Think of these as a starter birthday cake to make for friends — they travel well and feel like a party wherever you’re handing them out. Despite the sheet of sprinkles coating the top, these blondies aren’t cloyingly sweet. The batter has just enough brown sugar for a gentle butterscotch richness and a good hit of salt. Toasted at the edges and chewy in the center, these bars also have tiny crackles of caramelized sprinkles throughout.

Yield: One 8-inch pan (9 to 12 servings)

Total time: 35 minutes, plus cooling

INGREDIENTS

Butter, for greasing the pan

1 cup/130 grams all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

1 cup/189 grams lightly packed light or dark brown sugar

1/2 cup/113 grams unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup sprinkles, plus more for the top (see Tip)

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the center. Rub a pat of butter all over an 8-inch square baking pan.

2. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.

3. With a flexible spatula, stir the brown sugar and butter in a large bowl until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla, and stir vigorously until smooth again. Add the flour mixture and stir gently just until no floury streaks remain, then stir in 1/4 cup/40 grams sprinkles.

4. Spread the batter in the buttered pan into an even layer. Scatter sprinkles all over the top.

5. Bake until golden brown and starting to pull away from the edges of the pan, about 25 minutes. Cool completely in the pan on a rack. Cut into squares or rectangles. The blondies will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days at room temperature and 3 months in the freezer.

Tips: You can make these with any sprinkles you like. Shiny rainbow sprinkles may melt into the batter or bleed their color a bit on top, but should hold up. Matte sprinkles stay intact in the heat of the oven.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

One-bowl chocolate cake. You need only one bowl to mix the batter for this cake and can use it again to whip up a creamy two-ingredient frosting if you want. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Joseph De Leo/The New York Times)

By Genevieve Ko

Fluffy and tender, this chocolate cake comes together quickly in one bowl. It’s a friendly little birthday cake with its dead simple frosting (or a really great snack without). A blend of oil and buttermilk or yogurt keeps the crumb moist, as does a nice pour of hot tea. Oolong gives the cake a floral aroma, while using coffee instead highlights the cocoa’s bittersweetness. Plain hot water gives this an old-fashioned chocolate cake flavor. The two-ingredient frosting – essentially cream and chocolate melted together, then cooled until thick enough to swoop and swirl – can be made in the same bowl used for the cake batter. You can sprinkle flaky salt, chopped toasted nuts or sprinkles on top too. But, frosted or not, this cake welcomes coffee, tea or ice cream.

Yield: One 8-inch cake (9 to 12 servings)

Total time: 2 hours, mainly cooling

INGREDIENTS

For the Cake:

Canola or vegetable oil, for greasing the pan

1 1/4 cups/163 grams all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups/250 grams sugar

1/2 cup/54 grams unsweetened natural cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup/189 grams buttermilk or plain full-fat yogurt

1/4 cup/60 grams canola or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup hot oolong or black tea, hot coffee or hot water

For the Frosting (optional):

1 (4-ounce) bar bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, broken into small pieces

1/2 cup/125 grams heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

1. Make the cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Rub oil all over an 8-inch square cake pan.

2. Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla, and stir with the whisk until smooth. It will be thick at this point; gently smack the whisk against the bowl to release any batter stuck inside.

3. Add the hot tea and whisk until very smooth. Switch to a flexible spatula and scrape all of the batter into the pan.

4. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few tiny crumbs, about 45 minutes. Cool completely in the pan on a rack.

5. If you’re making the frosting, start it as soon as the cake comes out of the oven: Use the same bowl you used for the batter, washing it if you want. Combine the chocolate and cream in the bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir well, then microwave for 15 seconds and stir until smooth. If some chocolate remains solid, zap for 10 more seconds and stir.

6. If you don’t have a microwave or microwave-safe bowl, set the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water and stir until smooth.

7. Let the chocolate cream cool, stirring now and then, until thickened to the consistency of soft frosting. (This may take up to an hour.) Plop it all over the cake, even if it’s still a touch warm, and use a flexible spatula or a large spoon to swoop and swirl it to cover the top. Cut into pieces and serve.

Vegan Banana Bread

Vegan banana bread. The batter goes into a skillet, which ensures that it bakes through evenly (and quickly), and looks to overripe bananas, a common egg substitute, to bind the dry ingredients. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Joseph De Leo/The New York Times)

By Genevieve Ko

If you’ve never tried to bake anything before, this is a great place to start. (You don’t even need a cake pan!) And if you’re an expert in the kitchen, you’ll be delighted with this quick bread that’s as tender as cake. Overripe bananas not only deliver their deep sweetness, but also bind together the batter made from pantry ingredients. With neither dairy nor eggs, this treat tastes like the purest form of banana bread and also ends up being vegan. You can skip the crunchy topping or swap in your favorite nuts, or black or white sesame seeds. You also can stir a cup of mini chocolate chips or finely chopped chocolate into the batter before baking to take this from breakfast treat to dessert.

Yield: One 9- or 10-inch cake (8 to 12 servings)

Total time: 1 1/4 hours, plus cooling

INGREDIENTS

Canola or vegetable oil, for greasing the pan

1 1/2 cups/194 grams all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

1 1/2 cups/276 grams mashed very ripe bananas (from 3 to 4)

1/2 cup/100 grams sugar

1/2 cup/100 grams canola or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped pecans or roasted salted peanuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Rub oil inside a 9- or 10-inch ovenproof skillet.

2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.

3. Whisk the bananas and sugar in a large bowl until the bananas have completely broken down. Whisk in the oil and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour mixture and switch to a flexible spatula to stir until smooth.

4. Scrape and spread the batter into the skillet. Sprinkle the top with nuts, if you’d like.

5. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool completely in the skillet on a rack. The banana bread will keep, wrapped well, for up to 3 days at room temperature and up to 3 months in the freezer.

Fruit Crumble

Fruit crumble. Whether you throw in a little more fruit or skimp a little on the nuts, you’re going to end up with a vibrant yet warm dessert of jammy fruit and crunchy crumble. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Joseph De Leo/The New York Times)

By Genevieve Ko

The buttery blend of oats and nuts in this easy, warm dessert stays nubby and crunchy while baking over the juicy fruit. (It also happens to be gluten-free.) A chai spice blend is especially nice in the mix, but other sweet-leaning spices like cinnamon and cardamom taste just as good. Any blend of fruit works, and keeping the peel on apples, pears and stone fruit not only streamlines the preparation but also adds a pleasant chewiness. If you want to go all berry, stick with fresh options; frozen fruit ends up too wet. (Thawed frozen berries work just fine with a mix of sturdy fresh apples and pears, though.) You don’t have to serve a warm bowl of this crumble with ice cream, but you probably want that creaminess swirling into the jammy fruit.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Total time: 1 1/4 hours, plus cooling

INGREDIENTS

For the Crumble:

1 1/2 cups/154 grams instant oats (see Tip)

3/4 cup/150 grams sugar

1/2 cup/56 grams chopped pecans or walnuts

1 teaspoon chai spice or ground cinnamon (see Tip)

1 teaspoon fine salt

1/2 cup/114 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the Fruit:

2 pounds fruit, such as berries, pears, apples, peaches, plums or a combination

1/2 cup/100 grams sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch or flour (see Tip)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1. Prepare the crumble: Heat oven to 375 degrees with a rack in the center.

2. Mix the oats, sugar, nuts, chai spice and salt in a medium bowl. Cut the butter into cubes the size of dice and toss in. Use your fingers to smush the butter into the dry ingredients until no yellow bits remain and the blend forms clumps. Refrigerate uncovered while you prepare the fruit (or covered for up to 3 days).

3. Prepare the fruit: If you’re using big fruit, scrub it well, then cut into 1/2-inch pieces, about the same size as small blackberries or big blueberries. Throw out any pits, seeds or stems.

4. In a large bowl, mix the sugar and cornstarch. Add all the fruit, then the lemon juice and stir until well mixed. Scrape the fruit and any juices into a 9- or 10-inch ovenproof skillet and spread evenly.

5. Scatter the chilled crumble mixture evenly over the fruit, breaking any large clumps into smaller pebbles. Place the skillet on a sheet pan to catch any dripping fruit juices.

6. Bake until the fruit is bubbling, the liquid has thickened and the top is nicely browned, about 45 minutes. If the crumble darkens too much before the fruit mixture is thick, place a sheet of foil loosely on top. Cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Tips: If you want to make this gluten-free, be sure to use gluten-free oats and cornstarch.

You can also use a spice blend, such as apple pie spice or pumpkin spice, or a savory blend, like baharat.

Chunky Chocolate Cookies

Chunky chocolate cookies. For these airy yet fudgy disks, you can switch-up the mix-ins with your favorite salty-sweet combination. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Joseph De Leo/The New York Times)

By Genevieve Ko

Crisp at the edges and soft in the center, this chocolate cookie is lumpy with hooks of broken pretzels and melty chocolate chips. Built on a foundation of beating an egg with sugar until pale and full of tiny bubbles, it combines all the satisfying richness of a brownie with an almost airy lightness. Baking soda also helps lift the dense, dark dough in the oven. Once out, the craggy rounds deliver the irresistible pair of salty crunch and creamy sweetness in the tender, chocolaty cookie. You can switch-up the mix-ins with whatever you like: chocolate chunks, peanut butter chips, toffee bits, nuts or a combination. Just use a cup total for this amount of dough. And do consider keeping the pretzels no matter what else you throw in. Those little hits of salt turn perfectly good cookies into great ones.

Yield: 18 cookies

Total time: 25 minutes, plus cooling

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup/98 grams all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

1 large egg

3/4 cup/150 grams sugar

1/2 cup/114 grams unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup/45 grams natural unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup/100 grams chocolate chips

1/2 cup/24 grams coarsely broken mini pretzels

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the center. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

2. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.

3. Whisk the egg and sugar in a large bowl until pale yellow and thick, about 1 minute. Add the butter and cocoa, and whisk until smooth.

4. Switch to a flexible spatula and gently stir in the flour mixture until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in the chocolate chips and pretzels.

5. Using a dinner spoon, scoop 18 equal mounds of dough onto the pan, using another spoon or your finger to push the dough off the spoon. Space the mounds a few inches apart.

6. Bake until the tops of the cookies crack and just lose their shine, 8 to 10 minutes. Don’t overbake. Cool on the pan. You can eat them hot, but they’re better if they’ve cooled to at least warm. Once at room temperature, they’ll keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container.

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By STEVE KARNOWSKI (Associated Press)

A man accused of helping smuggle people across the U.S.-Canadian border had been warned of blizzard conditions before he arranged for four members of an Indian family to cross in 2022, prosecutors allege. The parents and two young children froze to death.

Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 28, who prosecutors say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” is due in federal court in Minnesota on Wednesday on seven counts of human smuggling. The man he allegedly hired to drive the Indian nationals from the Canadian border to the Chicago area also faces four counts, according to a new indictment unsealed last week.

The alleged driver, Steve Shand, of Deltona, Florida, was arrested and charged with human smuggling two years ago. He has pleaded not guilty and remains free on his own recognizance. Proceedings in his case have been put on hold several times.

In a recent court document, an agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Patel has been refused a U.S. visa at least five times, including four at U.S. consulates in India and once at the U.S. consulate in Ottawa, Canada. He is in the U.S. illegally, the agent said.

Patel’s name didn’t emerge until he was arrested in Chicago last month on a previously sealed warrant issued last September. Defense attorney Thomas Leinenweber said in an email that Patel will plead not guilty on Wednesday. He didn’t elaborate.

Unsealed court papers connect Patel with a human trafficking group based in the northwest Indian state of Gujarat. The group allegedly would get Indian nationals into Canada on student visas, then move them on to the Chicago area.

The migrants would work for substandard wages at Indian restaurants while they paid off debt to the smugglers, according to the court documents.

Prosecutors allege Shand was driving a rented 15-passenger van when it was stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol in Minnesota just south of the Canadian border on Jan. 19, 2022. Inside the van were two Indians from Gujarat who had entered the U.S. illegally, while five others were spotted walking nearby. According to court documents, they told officers they’d been walking for more than 11 hours in temperatures well below zero Fahrenheit (-34 Celsius).

One person was hospitalized with severe cold-related injuries.

A man with the group told authorities he paid the equivalent of about $87,000 to get smuggled into the U.S. He also had a backpack that contained children’s clothes and a diaper, but there were no children in the group.

The man told authorities he was carrying the items for a family of four with a small child, all of whom had become separated from his group during the night. Later that day, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the four dead, just 10 meters (33 feet) from the border near Emerson, Manitoba.

According to a series of messages sent via WhatsApp, Shand told Patel, “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions please.” Patel replied, “Done.” Then Shand remarked, “We not losing any money.”

The victims were identified as Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben, 34; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son Dharmik, all from the village of Dingucha in Gujarat state. It’s not clear if they were related to the defendant because Patel is a common name in India.

Jagdish Patel and his wife were educated and had worked as teachers, but sought a better life in the U.S, relatives have said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said their deaths were “mind blowing.”

The victims faced not only bitter cold, but also flat, open fields; large snowdrifts and complete darkness, the Mounted Police have said. They were wearing winter clothing, but it wasn’t enough to save them.

A court filing unsealed last month said Shand told investigators he first met Harshkumar Patel, whom he also knew by the nickname “Dirty Harry,” at a gaming establishment Patel managed in Orange City, Florida.

Shand said Patel originally tried to recruit him to pick up Indian nationals who were illegally crossing the U.S.-Canada border in New York. Shand said he declined, but agreed to pick up others in Minnesota.

Shand said Patel paid him about $25,000 altogether for five trips to the border in December 2021 and January 2022. He said he dropped off his passengers at an Indian supermarket in Chicago, a residence in a wealthy part of the Chicago area, and at a suburban Chicago motel.

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