The other night I was on the phone with Chris when Stein came into the kitchen holding his car keys. "Where are you going?' I asked. "To the store to get butter," he answered. "For what?" I asked, since we already had dinner and it was well into the evening. "Popcorn," he said.And so that night, he heated some oil in the big pot over the stove, poured in the kernels, and waited for the popping sound that makes you giddy with excitement. While he waited, he heated up the butter, and poured it over the popped corn that shriveled from the liquid. He sprinkled some salt on top and poured it all in the big metal bowl. I wasn't hungry before, but suddenly I found myself digging into the bowl, and stuffing huge fistfuls of popcorn into my mouth.
This whole scene was a weekly ritual in our house growing up, down to the metal bowl. My mom would make huge batches of the stuff, while we would pour some Coke from a bottle (ah, Coke in a bottle...) over ice in a glass. Then we would get our napkins ready, unfolding a corner so it made a sort of pocket to hold our popcorn. This was done on weekend nights, and we would watch TV while we crunched our popcorn. Maybe 20/20 on a Friday night, or Love Boat on a Saturday night? It didn't matter. What mattered was the warm crunchy popcorn, flavored with butter and salt. Yum.
3 comments:
Kelly - how funny, I think that it was the same night that I made popcorn and sat on the couch and ate some with Ana right before she went to bed. It was so fun, she wasn't expecting it and we sat and ate and she watched her little show. Take care, Ellen
We had popcorn on Sat too! Nothing like the sound of "bam..bam..bambambam" of the corn popping in a metal pan! I think I might have to go make some now...
When I was little, my Mom would dole out the popcorn with a meauring cup so we couldn't complain that one of us got more than the other. Now, I often eat it for dinner. Funny, I still make it in the big pot even though I have a popcorn popper. It just doesn't taste the same.
Post a Comment