Do You Like Popcorn?

YESTERDAY'S KNIT IN
The Gourmet Yarn Knit In was it's normal, spectacular, rowdy event. Large turnout and I saw several people taking pictures so check the other blogs for those. This is such a high energy, electric group. I love going even though it wears me out and I can only handle about two hours (well, I can only handle about two hours of anything with more two people involved). And it was so nice to see friends I hadn't seen since the Harlot's visit.

TATTOOS
Both Theresa and Rachel asked me about my next tattoo (skip to the next paragraph if you are anti-tattoo. I have a nice sized one on my left leg above my ankle and plan on getting at least one more.)

I found a picture of a three dimensional monarch butterfly tatooed on a woman's foot. It is very realistic and gorgeous. I plan to have a set of three butterflies tattooed on my thigh, just above my knee, like they just landed there. They will be mostly Oklahoman butterflies in as close to their true colors and sizes as possible.

I'm planning on a yellow and black swallowtail, a blue and black Melissa Blue or Reakirt's Blue, and a small violet copper (we have coppers but I don't think any of there are violet - but violet ones do exist in other parts of the world). So that's my plan. I should have done this four or five years ago. Now I'll have to wait at least two years but in the meantime I'm working on my design.

POPCORN
Finally! Are you a popcorn lover? Do you use your microwave as your primary or only popcorn maker? Want to find a better way to make popcorn for pennies compared to buying those packets? Do I sound like I'm trying to sell you something?

Here is my popcorn journey. Back in 1995, during one of my parent's visits, my Dad came into the kitchen carrying a little flat lunch bag and said "Where's your popcorn maker?" I pulled the hot air pop corn popper out of the cupboard and he said "No, no, I mean your popcorn maker." He was looking for a microwave oven. We didn't have one. Silly me, I thought we had no need for one.

Well, to make a long story only slightly shorter, they ended up buying us a nice microwave and Dad taught me how to make popcorn. The hot air popper went into a yard sale and we have made popcorn in the microwave ever since. But now I can't eat commercial popcorn. Whatever is put on it, it just doesn't taste good. So I haven't had popcorn in over a year.

But I just became hooked on Alton Brown and the Good Eats program (I don't really cook and have never been interested but I've been sucked in big time. I'm thinking about buying a cast iron skillet, for Pete's Sake!). In the process of all finding "All Things Alton", I ran across his book "I'm Just Here For the Food" (checked it out of the library) and came across an astonishing (to me, anyway) way to make popcorn. Some of you may already be doing this but if you're not, you need to try it.

Homemade Microwave Popcorn
Pour 1/4 - 1/3 cup of regular cheap Jolly Time popcorn into a regular 50-bags-for-a-buck lunch sack. Fold the sack edges over twice with about a half inch fold both times. And get this - STAPLE each corner!!! It turns out the staples are shorter than the microwave waves and are not even detected if they are in each corner! So use only TWO staples at least three inches apart.

(And since I am really lazy and didn't want to walk clear across the house to get the office stapler, I bought a KITCHEN stapler at Dollar Tree. Who would have thought THAT would be a neccesary piece of kitchen equipment!)

Put the bag in the microwave and cook on high for 2 - 3 minutes or until the pops are about 5 seconds apart. Take out the bag, open it (watch out for the steam) and pour your own amount of butter on. Alton, my food hero, also suggests putting a tablespoon of brown sugar in the bag once in a while. As soon as I can eat sugar, you know I'm going to try this.

We did go though two or three bags before getting it right, but at this price you don't even flinch when the whole bag goes in the garbage (we did take a batch outside for the birds but they were singularly unimpressed).

I can not believe how well this works and how cheap it is. I figure we are paying less than five cents a bag for popcorn and I CAN EAT IT! This is about the coolest thing I've run across in ages. Anyway, give it a try. It took us a couple of times to get the cooking time right for our microwave and to get the amount of popcorn right for the lunch bag. Cheap GOOD EATS!