Pox Patrol
My boys woke at five this morning, both of them jumping on my bed, requesting more caramel corn. I started to move my eyebrows south and opened my mouth to say "Get the heck back to bed you too ungrateful crazy children and don't get up 'till the REAL morning!" but instead my tongue formed these strange words: "Ok, let's do it!"
So five-thirty found me sticking a bag of popcorn in the microwave and assembling butter and brown sugar and a spatula and a good flat pan and firing up that uneven gas oven for a morning treat. My boys snuggled together on the couch watching me, watching a dinosaur video, and my oldest son, 17, scuffed into the kitchen, ready to scream that his beauty sleep was disrupted - I saw the south-moving eyebrow, an unfortunate family trait - but when he saw the goods spread upon the table, all he managed was "Alright! Caramel Corn!" As it should be, people, as it should be.
And because I'm feeling full and happy and generous, here is my super sonic secret recipe for all you moms and dads and sons and daughters who have chicken pox or flu or a migraine or a love affair gone sour. This corn heals all.
Easy Caramel Corn a la Birdie
Preheat oven to 250 degrees
2 bags microwave popcorn, the "light" versions work best
1 cup butter (oh baby you read that right)
1 box brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pop both bags of popcorn and dump them into a big, flat baking pan. Combine butter, sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a stove pan and heat to a rolling boil. Turn down the heat to medium and let the stuff boil for five minutes, but don't stir it! Remove from heat, add vanilla and baking soda and stir. When you add the baking soda the liquid puffs up to nearly double its size, this is normal.
Pour the solution over the popcorn, stir to coat the popcorn as best you can. This is a good part for the kids to do. Pop it in the oven and bake for one hour, stirring every fifteen minutes to keep it well-coated. At the end of the hour, remove from oven and unload the popcorn onto a big piece of aluminum foil. Once it cools, break into manageable pieces. Eat!
7:40:37 AM 
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