Popcorn

Microwave popcorn used to be one of my favourite snacks, but ever since I found out about popcorn-workers' disease, I can't touch the stuff. Interestingly, microwave popcorn doesn't seem very popular here anyway, and I've only noticed supermarkets carrying one brand (if any) in their snack aisles, whereas Canadian supermarkets seem to carry a staggering number of brands, with several flavours made by each company. In any case, I've been craving popcorn recently, so we bought some of the old-fashioned stuff the other day:

It turns out that neither of us can actually remember making real popcorn on the stove (unless you count Jiffy Pop)--so today was a bit of an old-school adventure! In spite of our lack of actual cooking experience, I remember when my dad used to make popcorn when I was little--he always said that shaking the saucepan was the most important part. In fact, I remember the sound of the metal saucepan scraping across a heating element even more than eating the popcorn! So, a bit of oil, a small amount of popcorn, lid on, some oven mitts, and I shook away. I'm embarrassed to say that it was amazingly exciting when the first pops came from within the pan, and, as those first explosions were drowned out by many, many more, the transformation was complete. A bit of butter, some salt and pepper, and we settled into the living room with our delicious, ultra-simple snack.