Obligatory rhetorical internets question: So what's this site about?
The long answer: This morning at the Farmers Market at Tompkins Square in Manhattan I picked up a jar of popcorn — an $8 jar of popcorn. $8 is a fair price to pay for a 24-plus-ounce Ball jar of popcorn if that popcorn comes locally, and isn't just someone buying a giant Costco pack of Orville Redenbacher (God bless his soul) and tossing it into a Mason jar. So I asked: Is this popcorn raised locally? And the woman behind the counter told me indeed it was...
And then she asked me if I even knew how to make popcorn. I looked "too young" to know that it can be made on a stove.
Yes, I told her, I know how to make popcorn. (Imagine this in a very kind, warm voice, not a huffy "Dangit, I'll show you Popcorn Lady!" tone. The conversation could not have been more lovely.)
In the early eighties my mom started making stove-top popcorn (a favorite of hers) with olive oil. It was either due to the macrobiotic diet wave that crashed down upon our town, or my dad's gallbladder waving the white flag after a couple decades of good eatin'. (Our dad is called Ranch, by the way, and will be referred to here as such ongoing.) At first, the new and kind of intense aroma and taste threw us (I come from a family with five kids, so "us" is really
US) off, but then it became simply... the flavor of popcorn.
Turn the gas on, let the pan heat, cover the bottom with olive oil, let
it heat (but not to a flash point; just let it get warmed up), and then cover the bottom of the pan with one layer of popcorn. Just a single coat... the science of our house dictated that a bottom covering of popcorn was about what it'd take to fill a given pan. (Then again, the science of our house also called for "one pound of food per person.") Toss a lid on. Now, just turn the heat up,
shake shake shake over the flame, and once the popping slows down, take it off the heat and it is... done. If you do it right, there will be too much popcorn for the pan and the lid will lift off about an inch. (If you fuck it up and don't move the kernels around enough, the bottom of the pan will burn a lot of the popcorn. All is not lost, though: You can give it to my oldest sister, Lauren, who loves it this way; between nighttime grinding and eating burnt popcorn kernels, our family puts a lot of wear on our teeth.)
Admission: I got distracted testing out the Madura Farms (I couldn't find a web address, but the phone number is 845.342.0654) kernels — I was folding laundry and also watching a scantily-clad neighbor across the way talk on her cell phone while sweeping rain water off her balcony — and got back to my kitchen with the lid still off the pan and little white guys jumping all over the place. (Like a crappy lounge on Park Avenue South.) But then I got the lid on and finished it off properly, topped it with a little
fleur de sel and cold olive oil (beats butter by a thousand fold), and it was compact and chewy and great. (See, I do know how to make stove-top popcorn, Madura Farms!) Side note: The woman across the way has a roommate now also out on their tiny deck; also scantily clad.
Anyway, the point is: This is a place where we (my sisters and brother are going to join in shortly) can talk about food being food, and kitchen traditions being lost and found again — and hopefully creating some traditions of our own right here.
Also: I am probably going to revise this posting at some point. But we needed to get things started.
Oh, the short answer: Food.
Smooch.
—Jason
