POPcorn! More POPular than ever!

Make fresh POPcorn on your stove top the old-fashioned way and it'll be the most POPular snack at the party.  Even more POPular than brownies!  So how does Marash Girl make POPcorn?  The way her mother and mother-in-law made it.  The old-fashioned way.

To make old-fashioned POPcorn:

Put a heavy stainless steel pan on the stove (the type with a single handle and a cover), pour some olive oil just to cover the bottom, add one or two kernels of POPping corn.  Cover the pot.  Heat the oil.  When the oil gets hot enough, the two kernels will POP.  At that point, while the pan is still on the hot burner, cover the bottom of the pan with dried kernels of POPping corn.  Cover the pan (with its cover) and keep shaking the pan until all the kernels are POPped.  When you hear no more POPping, turn off the heat (or gas), remove the pan from the stove, and pour the POPcorn in a bowl large enough to accommodate all the wonderful POPpcorn you have just POPped.  The aroma will fill the house and its inhabitants with joy!  Now add POPcorn salt or kosher salt to taste. Toss.  Be careful not to over salt.  At this point you can add other flavorings such as garlic powder or garlic salt, etc. etc. 

Recently, some folks have been suggesting that salt and flavorings should be added to the oil.  Marash Girl experimented with adding salt to the oil at the very beginning of the heating process.  The result?  It took much longer for the oil to heat up and for the POPcorn to POP.  (Though not a chemist, Marash Girl believes that the salt lowered the temperature of the oil.)  The result?  POPcorn that was NOT light and airy, that took much longer to prepare, and much longer to chew!

Marash Girl recommends the old fashioned way!  Add the salt after the POPcorn is done.  AND if you really want to have some fun, do it the way Marash Boy's mom used to do it:  Have a sheet already spread out on the kitchen floor so that while the POPcorn is POPping, the young 'uns are waiting . . . as soon as the POPcorn is done, pour it onto the sheet, and let the young 'uns sit around the outer edge of the sheet and feast to their heart's content!