popcorn

In the pot, five by five

I'm pretty sure I remember when my parents got their first microwave. I was a junior in high school, and it was 1989. My mom (and now my dad) have always been from-scratch cooks, and we didn't use that microwave for frozen pizzas or pot pies or hot pockets. No, by golly when you made a pot pie you made it in the oven and it took an hour. When there was a babysitter (which wasn't often) there would be the huge treat of a frozen pot pie for dinner and a person could practically camp out in front of that stove waiting for the damn thing to cook.

I digress. When that microwave oven came into the house it was used for one thing only: popcorn. Oddly, that enormous hunk of technology was used to provide a service that had been provided flawlessly for as long as I could remember by a big pot on the stove. Was it the novelty? Well, yeah, you could make popcorn by pushing exactly one button. The one that said "popcorn." Yay, Modern Life! Bring me my jetpack, for I am embracing The Future!

It took years for me to go back to in-the-pot popcorn and I am proud to announce that my microwave is now mostly used to defrost containers of soup stock. In the Brown house this is important, since the freezer is about half-full of various stocks and we use a lot of it. And it takes a very long time for a frozen 4-cup block to defrost on the counter. Now when I have a hankering for popcorn I do it the old fashioned way.

1. Put a big pot on the stove. Pour enough oil in to just cover the bottom, drop in 3 popcorn kernels, put the lid on, and turn the burner on high.
2. When the kernels pop, dump in as much popcorn as you want. Typically 1/4c kernels for 2 people.
3. Wait for them to start popping, and when they do, shake the pan back and forth every 10 seconds until the pops slow to one per second.
4. Open lid, sprinkle on desired condiments. Salt, pepper, chinese 5-spice, cayenne, aleppo pepper, cumin, sugar, whatever you like. I do not recommend putting all of these things on at once. Please for your sake only pick things that match up in flavor. I highly recommend salt, sugar, and cayenne. Feeling like you need to top off your day with a million calories? Melt some butter and mix that in, then sprinkle on parmesan cheese.
5. Dump into bowl and eat.

More work than the microwave? Well, you do have to wash the pot eventually. But it takes probably 5 minutes max to go from "I want popcorn" to "I have popcorn."

My secret ingredients for an excellent popcorn experience:

Oh, msg, I faint in your flavorful forbidden embrace. Please don't tell anyone.

Popcorn leads to mandatory flossing, which leaves you with the wonderful glow of hygienic superiority that only flossing can give (nevermind all of those parmesan calories)

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Cat ecstasy:
I have never seen Harry so content in all of his 12 years of life.


Best thing about this picture:
Right after I took it Charlie said "you're not going to put this on your blog, are you?" I assured him it was completely tasteful and that no one would make fun of his red plaid comfy pants.