A Kettle Corn Recipe That Works..at last!

After having kettle corn for the first time a couple of years ago, finding it as irresistible as the White Witch's Turkish Delight, I came home and started trying to make it. The carnival guys wear protective gear, stand over a pot big enough for a witch's brew and stir the oil, corn, and sugar over an open flame. My first attempts sent me looking in the garage for the face mask my husband has for welding and some armpit length rubber gloves for...birthing cows or horses maybe? Both the popcorn and myself got burned. Anyway, I failed to make anything like kettlecorn. I tried some tamed-down version where you shake confectioner's sugar over freshly popped corn, but it strangely tasted like confection's sugar shaken over popcorn. And no, microwave popcorn of any variety won't do. I hadn't tried again until the other day when my several attempts produced a flesh wound and more burnt popcorn, but...hidden like treasure were just a few pieces that tasted right: crispy, salty, sweet. Just enough to ignite the craving again, to search the internet for one more recipe.

I did it! Here's how:

First, I halved the typical recipe because I've never been able to keep the stuff from burning and reasoned that I could control the process with less. I measured everything ahead of time because timing is key. I set out the bowl the hot kettlecorn would go into to keep it from burning in the pan after it's popped.

3 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup popcorn (I used Orville's, a new jar claiming to be fresh)
4 teaspoons sugar

Then I mixed the popcorn and sugar together into one measuring cup.

I have a tall, fairly-heavy-bottomed stock pot with a glass lid that has a hole for steam to escape. I think being able to see what's going on helps a lot. If you have only a heavy pot, you will need to vent it slightly because steam does need to escape to prevent tough popcorn, but be careful, the only thing hotter than popping oil is sugared popping oil!

I put the oil in the pot on medium high heat, added 3 kernels of corn, put the lid on and waited for those kernels to pop. When they popped, I quickly threw in the popcorn and sugar mixture, returned the lid and shook the pot a few times while on the burner. The popping started immediately. This is when you take the pot off the heat and shake it. Every 3-4 seconds. Whether you think you should or not. I shook it back and forth. I shook it up and down. The steam prevented me from really seeing all that was going on, so I wasn't sure it wasn't burning, but at least I could see lots of white.

When the popping slowed, just before I was pretty sure all the kernels had popped, I removed it one last time, carefully took the top off and poured the popcorn into my bowl as fast as possible. Added salt to taste.

It was delicious. As good as the kind at the fair? No, but just about.

They Know His Voice

Sometimes, in the rare moments I allow myself to think of such things, I wonder, when I step into the next life in its glowing nakedness, when all that isn't true but seemed to be crumbles into dust, when suddenly in one moment I'm overwhelmed by the brilliance of Jesus, what will be the truth about the life I lived here on earth.

Which is to ask, do I really follow Jesus? At all? A little? A lot?

I confess that I seriously doubt my ability to answer that question. Of course I want to land in the affirmative, can come up with a few potential proofs, and am fairly certain my fellow believers would point to this or that in response.

And yet......

Haven't you ever wondered if when you get to heaven you'll be shown this entirely different life you could have lived? If only?

Most of the time when I ask myself if I truly follow Jesus, I think no, not really. I don't hear him say go here, walk this way. I've pretty much got my course set, my days planned. But then again, it's not that I DON'T follow him. How's that for avoiding the question, for lowering the bar of discipleship? As you can see, I get lost in a quagmire of condemnation on one side, justification on the other.

Yesterday, however, after reading in John where Jesus talks about sheep knowing the voice of their shepherd, refusing to listen to the voice of a stranger, this thought came to me:

What if the life I'm living is just what he wanted all along? He is the Shepherd. He's called me and I heard because I'm one of His. I go in and out and find pasture. I listen for His voice because I belong to Him, and I don't listen to the voice of the stranger because I don't know him.

It's as simple and pure and beautiful as that.