homemade popcorn!

Ladies and gents, I have made my first (and subsequently second and third) pot of popcorn tonight. I've always been a fan of the microwaveable kind since I could chew... I've tried 'em all - Orville Redenbacher, Act II, Jolly Time, Newman's Own, Pop Secret, Butter, 94% Fat Free Butter, Butter Lovers, Kettlecorn, Movie Theater Butter, Cheddar, Natural, etc. (My personal favorite would be Newman's Own Butter).

However, popping your own has been more appealing to me for several reasons:

-Recently, I put in a bag of popcorn, only to find 3 minutes later, an unpopped burnt bag of kernels. I blame it on my microwave more than the popcorn, but who knows. It happened twice with the same brand. I've found this to be a universal problem- you never know how long you should actually keep a bag in there.

-At $2.50-4.99 per box, it gets pricey and unless you're sharing it with people, you inevitably eat the entire bag like me (and regret it right after) or throw half of it out because microwaved popcorn, for some reason, cannot be saved. Does anyone else notice that after awhile, they get kind of chewy?

-It either has too much butter, or not enough.

-It sometimes has a weird chemical-y taste. ick.

-Plus, on Monday night, I went to Cinereach's Reach Out Film Fellowship screening at the Sunshine Cinema to take photographs and they had little bags of popcorn for guests to take. I had saved half and had it the next day at work. It was the perfect snack: Salty, crunchy and light.

So today, I got a bag of Jolly Time yellow corn kernels for $1.69. Not bad.
I poured a little vegetable oil in a medium-sized pot and accidentally poured too many kernels in. The instructions said there shouldn't be a layer more than one kernel high. Oops. I spooned some out and covered the pot... except it wasn't the right lid so it didn't fit properly and i was shaking the pot over a medium-high heat, trying to let steam out without too many kernels popping out. Soon, I heard that fantastic sizzle and POP! They popped pretty quickly after that and soon the pot was full of beautiful fluffy white popcorn. I spooned it out into another bowl but saw there were still alot of unpopped kernels left. so I heated it up a second time and hoped it wouldn't burn. They popped once more and I put down the pot but the lid fell off so I had popcorn popping EVERYWHERE. It was definitely like some cheesy scene out of a movie, but it was actually my life. I think this goes right up with that time I froze sparking wine and had the bottle explode all over my freezer with a white wine slush over everything. Whoops.

Anyway, the second batch had more of a burnt taste to them, but the first was great. I sprinkled a little salt and it was perfect. The one and maybe only time I ever had homemade popcorn was back when I was about 8 years old, at my friend Elizabeth's house upstate where they had an automatic popcorn maker. It was exciting at the time, but I wasn't used to just having salt on it. I have come a long way from the girl who got excited to pump her own butter at the movie theater. (by "girl", I mean when I was like 19 and got a free large bag of popcorn at the East Village movie theater because it was a student special; and a friend and I poured butter all over til it soaked through the bag but I digress...)

Lessons learned:
Do not put in too many kernels. Once that pot is full, any remaining popping kernels will end up on your stove and/or floor.
Salt when it is still hot.
A little oil goes a long way.
It is best shared with friends.