5 october, 2000
butter: does a body good
I do hope you denizens can forgive my review-light September. I have to be honest with you, and admit that I just didn't buy too much stuff during the move. However, I crossed the paths of many unusual objects, so October promises to be a real taste sensation! Or something.
So I'm in my friendly new neighborhood supermarket, with high aspirations of filling my cabinets with good goodies. Apples. Carrots. Plums. Butter-Boom Microwave Popcorn.
Oh, yeah. I don't guess I ever really detailed my weekly grocery-shopping habits for you guys. Believe it or not (no, really,) I rarely purchase things like potato chips and nachos at the supermarket. While I love these things, I love them too much to make it a habit of giving them shelter in my kitchen. No one, even our friend the barbeque Pringle, deserves to die the kind of death I can inflict: arm shoved down can, rolling around on the floor, crunching, moaning to self "and they're all the same size...marry me, Mr. Pringle. Be my big Pringly daddy."
I have my share of casual snacks. One-night snack stands. Empty, meaningless snacks. But most of them are late-night, single-purchase impulse buys from the local Texaco. No one knows me there...yet.
But I digress. I'm on a mission at Harris Teeter, and that is a nutritionally-complete shopping basket. There are bioflavanoids in here, by cracky, and I'm not going to screw up a good thing. Or, I wasn't going to, until I approached the natural foods aisle. They have snacks there, too. Colorful, pretty ones.
Some of them feature Paul Newman.
Now, I've never been a rabid Paul Newman fan. However, in recent years, I have come to admire his business venture into the whole foods market. All profits go to charity, his daughter is company honcho, and I had heard the quality was top-notch.
That, and there was a big box of butter-splashing, gut-bombing organic greasy enjoyment staring me smack in the face. Paul Newman's baby blues stood out like little cornflowers on the great saturated tidal wave of buttery packaging goodness. The word "boom" was outlined in red. I own a microwave oven. And I think I saw Paul's little lips moving to say, "buy it, Kim. Pop me. You need a big bag of Paul, baby."
Into the shopping basket he went. Joanne Woodward, eat your heart out!
I dash to the checkout lane, sniffing the buttery box all the way to the end of the motorized belt. This was going to be good. Just short of requesting a police escort home, I nonetheless made it back in good time, tore open the box, grabbed a bag, set the microwave, and waited for popping to commence. While that happened, I decided to read the box. And became even further infatuated with Mr. Newman. Not with him, exactly, but with his snacking candor. On the back of the box, he actually admits to carrying his own bag of greasy popcorn to the movies for years. The buttery-er, the better, and he was determined to capture the same slippery magic in your microwave.
You heard me, kids. Greasy. I think that I am in love.
Popping has ceased. I open the door, and things are already looking good. The bag is dripping butter. It is slick to the touch. All kernels are soft and yellowed. Not your usual, dried-out, burned-up bag of nukecorn --- which I'm not in the habit of purchasing for just those reasons. Bleck.
Oh, but Paul. I was hooked on the first handful. You guys have GOT to try this stuff. It is so damn greasy that you won't be able to finish the bag in one sitting. So what you do is let it sit for an hour or so, then dig in again. By that time, the grease has soaked in some more and it tastes even better. Then, when you're finished, you can rip apart the bag and lick that.
I mean, if you're really into that sort of thing. And may I note that Paul's popcorn is cat-friendly. Wilma was about to chew my fingers off trying to get the last taste of butter from them.
So, do what I say I and run to your local supermarket. Bypass the Doritoes, Orville Redinbacher, and Rold Gold. Make your contribution to "Shameless Exploitation in the Pursuit of the Common Good" by grabbing you a box of Newman's own dee-lish pop-o-licious yumfest. You won't be sorry.
I mean, look at Paul Newman. He's handsome. He's skinny. He's a big star. Chicks dig him. Good things happen to those who wade in big vats of butter.
Newman's Own Butter Boom Microwave Popcorn
www.newmansown.com