I can't has cheezburger

I love things, especially things that are well made. In fact, I love things so much, I decided to start a new series right here on icanthascheezburger just to tell you about a few of these things. I don’t get any kickbacks from any of the things I recommend (check the links for affiliate codes; there aren’t any!). They’re just things I love and use almost every day.

The Forever Alone Massager, as I lovingly call my Backnobber II, is just fantastic. Working at a desk can lead to some knots in hard to reach places on my back, and even if I can reach them, I can’t really apply the kind of pressure needed to really get those knots worked out just by contorting my arms to reach my back.  

The Forever Alone Massager takes care of that neatly by giving you two different sized hooks you can use to reach your back with ease. The wider hook reaches more places on your back, but the smaller hook has less give, allowing for a really intense, deep massage of the neck and shoulders. 

At $30 (on Amazon) it isn’t super cheap but it’s very well designed and durable, being made of a fiberglass reinforced nylon. Put together the massager is kind of big but it comes apart into two pieces which can easily fit in a backpack.

My only complaint about it is that if I’m pulling really hard (and I mean really hard) the massager will sometimes pull apart into two pieces. If this is a concern the company that makes these also sells their original one which is made of metal and is a single piece (I’m thinking about getting that one too, just so I have one at work and at home).

The original Backnobber with Big Bend (Amazon)

Backnobber II (Amazon)

I’m really not sure how people who microwave a bag of popcorn seeds mixed with some butter-resembling ooze can live with themselves. Of course, who am I to judge you for having such low standards?

There is a better way, and it’s more within reach than you think. You just need a few things.

The Equipment

• A stirring popcorn pot, such as the Whirley Pop
• Popcorn salt (unlike table salt, popcorn salt is ground much more finely)
• Butter (clarified butter, or ghee, also works nicely if you are worried about butter’s low smoking point. Extra virgin coconut oil is also excellent. But if you want the real deal, use butter)
• Popcorn seeds 

If you don’t have the money for a Whirley Pop, I personally am partial to using a light aluminum pot to pop corn in. If you only have a heavier pot available to you then no worries, just be aware it needs more time to heat up on the stove.

Now, to choose your variety of popcorn. You could just use any old bag of popcorn seeds you find at the store and by popping it with this method you will end up with popcorn that tastes far better than your typical microwave popcorn. But if you want to do this right, and I mean really do it right, you want to use an heirloom variety of popcorn.

The heirloom varieties of popcorn haven’t been selectively bred for size and puffiness like their industrial counterparts. Instead, the kernels and the resulting popped kernels are very small. Not only that, but they pack a ton of great flavor. You’ll find that a good heirloom variety has a bit of a “corny” taste to it. The Orville Redenbachers of the world were focused on making a popcorn that popped with fewer “old maids” (the stubborn kernels that don’t pop), popping faster, and having more volume to the popcorn, and that’s what they bred for, as opposed to taste. My current heirloom variety of choice is the venerable Tiny But Mighty variety, grown in Iowa. 

The Recipe

Now to make the popcorn!

1. Begin to heat your pan. If you use a gas stove, a lower setting will suffice. Electric stoves choose a medium level. Add a half stick of butter and 1-2 teaspoons of popcorn salt depending on your taste.
2. Once the butter is completely melted (it may be sizzling or smoking a bit; that’s fine) it’s time to add the popcorn. Add 1/4-3/8 cup of heirloom popcorn seeds (depending on how buttery you’d like it to be) or 1/4 cup of a standard variety  of popcorn. 
3. Now you play the waiting game. Every 20-30 seconds, give the pan a good lateral shake to keep the heat distributed between the kernels. If you’re using a Whirley Pop or similar pan, start to turn the stirring pot as soon as you start to hear a pop. 
4. Stir or shake like mad up until the point where the popping reaches a critical mass of pops. The sound of near constant popping will bring you incredible joy. After this point the popping will decelerate rather rapidly. As soon as you hear it slow down to the point where there is 1-2 seconds between pops, take it off the heat and immediately transfer into your serving bowl.
5. Wait about 1-2 minutes for extra moisture and heat to evaporate away from the popcorn. This will leave you with a nice crunchy snack to enjoy and it won’t be too hot.

If you use an electric stove, it does take substantially longer for the popcorn to heat up, but you will nonetheless end up with delicious popcorn. 

Things you shouldn’t do

• You should NOT use one of these cutesy “popcorn topping” seasonings that are butter or cheese flavored. 
• You should NOT use that Orville Redenbacher brand “butter” flavored oil for cooking popcorn in. Use butter.
• You should NOT top your popcorn with parmesan cheese. Your popcorn will be truly delicious with just salt and butter.
• You should NOT use coconut oil that isn’t extra virgin. It’s just flavorless and has none of the health benefits of the real deal
• You should NOT sit here thinking about how unhealthy this is. If you prefer the healthy approach try an air popper with an heirloom variety.

I am known around these parts as a popcorn expert, and I can make popcorn taste like it came from pretty much anywhere. The movie theater style of popcorn is thought of as the gold standard for what to make your popcorn aspire to be. That’s why so many microwave popcorn boxes claim to be movie theater style. And it makes sense, too. After all, movie theater popcorn costs $7 a bag, so therefore something that costs more than a meal at In-N-Out (also has more calories than a meal at In-N-Out) should therefore be the best, right?

So let’s start with your choice of popcorn. Now, you might want to choose a nice heirloom variety, citing my logic about price correlating to value. This is a rookie mistake; don’t do it. Movie theaters sell their popcorn at a high price; they don’t buy it that way! We are adding value to the popcorn by making it movie theater style. Get the cheapest stuff you can find, and make sure it has no flavor of its own. We can add flavor later! Bonus points if it pops to a bigger kernel; after all, you sell by volume!

So what do you cook the popcorn in? Well, the secret ingredient in movie theater popcorn is coconut oil. Hold on there one second there, you with the extra virgin coconut oil. I realize you might have reached for that because extra virgin reminds you of your lifestyle, but here in the movie theater business we actually like to make a profit on our popcorn, and you’re not getting that with extra virgin anything. Get the 1 gallon jar of the movie theater style coconut oil. It probably has an unsightly orange color, but that’s just beta carotene it was dyed with to make the popcorn look buttery. Oh, and you can just skip right by the butter aisle, there won’t be any of that involved in this process at all.

All right, so now that you have your ingredients, let’s get started with making the popcorn. Heat the oil up in a pot, and add your popcorn. Add your Flavacol now. What’s Flavacol? Well, it’s like salt, but it also paints the blank canvas of your popcorn with some “buttery” flavor to give your popcorn that authentic taste.  Add your popcorn (1/4 cup popcorn seeds to 4 tbsp coconut oil works) and shake it up and let it pop. 

Are we done? Nope, not at all. If you want a real, authentic popcorn taste like the movie theater makes, you’ll need to leave that sitting in a glass box under a heat lamp for at least an hour. 

Once you’ve done that, you have to top it off with that “buttery” topping stuff that makes it oh so good! What’s that made of? Some simple ingredients that might find in the house, like partially hydrogenated soybean oil (don’t completely hydrogenate it for goodness sake!) and just a pinch of dimethylpolysiloxane, because you don’t want this stuff foaming. If you have extra, you can make some Silly Putty with it!. 

And there you have it! Real movie theater style popcorn right in the comfort of your own home. If you want to add the sticky floor effect pour some pop on your floor and pay some lackadaisical teenagers minimum wage to clean up for a few weeks and you should be good to go (teenage kids will work in a pinch too). If you can get that just right you’ll have a living room worthy of the caliber of movies that Hollywood is putting out lately like House At the End Of the Street. Enjoy!