Popping Corn

My entire life I was a microwave popcorn type gal.  No real strong reason why.  That was just what my family did.  In fact, I didn't even realize there were other options outside of the movie theater for most of my life.  But, when I met Matt I was introduced to the Stir Crazy style of popcorn making.  Really, there was no going back to microwave after that.  I think it tastes fresher and better and it made so much sense to just buy organic popping corn in bulk and make it ourselves rather than buy plastic wrapped trash containing microwave popcorn and questionable ingredients.  Then, sometime last year Matt's old Stir Crazy bit the big one.  So, Matt's been making it on the stove top ever since.  I was very impressed the first time.  For whatever reason it had never occurred to me that we could do that! Silly me, I know!

Matt would heat the oil, add the corn, stir with a whisk until the kernels started popping, and then quickly slam the lid down on the pot before the popcorn starts flying all over the kitchen.  Then he would just shake the pot like the dickens until the popping stopped.  It worked pretty well, but wasn't ideal because of the potential for showering popcorn and that even with the fierce shaking we still burned a bit on a few occasions.  Still we didn't have a burning desire to go out and spend money on a new popper since our system worked, more or less.  We are very much a let's-see-if-we-can-make-do-with-what-we-already-have type folks, partly out of environmentalism and partly because of our frugal natures.   I bet we ate less popcorn though for lack of a real popper.

Well, we are back to eating popcorn at the slightest whim now.

Doesn't he look just fiendishly pleased?

Matt's parents gave him a Whirley Pop for his birthday last month and it is just incredible.  The box said 'Perfect popcorn every time' and that is exactly our experience thus far.  Perfect.  Only a couple duds, if any, in a batch and no burnt popcorn.  We are pretty darn impressed.  Plus, the thing has a 20 year warranty!   I rarely hear of products with quality assurance like that these days! 

I'd read about the Whirley Pop somewhere (I am thinking Mother Earth News), but like I said, we had a system in our way and so we weren't rushing out to buy one.  I think if we knew that it really would work this well we maybe would have!  Fortunately, Matt's parents knew we didn't own a popper anymore and thought it would be a good birthday present for Matt.  His mom checked with me to make sure we hadn't gotten one ourselves already and I told her about the Whirley Pop, which we thought we'd prefer to another Stir Crazy.   They were even able to find one in town, something I was doubting when I told Sharon about it.

We made up a huge bag of popcorn for our long vacation just like Matt's family used to do on their summer vacations and I could tell it made Matt really happy.  It made me pretty happy too as I munched and enjoyed the scenery!