Saturday, July 05, 2008

The Kind You Make Yourself

While I was away on retreat, Barnacle Boy and friends had many adventures and ate much popcorn. Last year I taught him how to make popcorn on the stove - with a pan, a bit of oil and a lid. He was floored by how much better it tasted than the microwave stuff - and impressed that it didn't take any longer to produce a batch this way. The little microwave bags haven't been seen in my house for months.

Today I went to the grocery store to restock his supply (and to buy more milk - we could keep a cow in business). They have just remodeled and I had to hunt to find the popcorn section. Feeling flush with success when I located it, I was quickly dismayed. No plain popcorn kernels. It's microwave or nothing.

I ventured forth to customer service where the very helpful young woman responded incredulously to my query about non-microwave popcorn with, "You mean the kind you make yourself?" Are we the last ones to make it this way? And where will I find the raw kernels??



Amazon sells the kernels by the case.

7 comments:

  1. no help here from one who is not a fan of the food... except to say that I have seen popcorn in seed catalogs... yes you can grow your own.

    could you rip open the microwave bags, but how silly is that??? or do they treat it before they bag it???

    welcome back.

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  2. Same thing happened to us. Unbelievable! Fortunately, my grocery store returned the kernels recently.
    They really are easier -- and better -- than the bag kind.

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  3. I'd forgotten about making popcorn NOT in the microwave! Thanks for the reminder.

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  4. BTW, how was the retreat?

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  5. We found the kernels at a grocery store near today's errands - whew! We figured out that the cost per batch is 1/20th of the bags...

    Jan, the retreat was all grace - thanks!

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  6. We make our own popcorn but I also hang my clothes out on a line all summer. LOL

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  7. "Hi, my name is Stasa, and I am a recovering microwave popcorn addict. It's been 11 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days since I last used microwave popcorn. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share..." Oh, wait, this isn't a meeting -- sorry. ;-)

    I have loved popcorn since I was a kid. Michelle may remember the hot-air popper in my dorm room; it was right next to my tea stash. :)

    I originally hated microwave popcorn, but then my first partner (do you remember Kyle, Michelle?) got me into it, and I was, sadly, hooked.

    I stopped last year because of the connections between my favorite kind -- butter -- and lung disease in workers and some consumers; plus microwave popcorn is much less Earth-friendly than stove-popped or hot-air popped, and it's much less expensive.

    We've been doing air-popped, with butter and kosher salt -- yum! When we're really lucky (this is the actual point of this comment), we can find it at the Farmers Market, of all places. Often, in bulk at the local co-op or health food store, and sometimes even a local grower/producer. Which I think is really neat.

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