Pop Culture and Popcorn. With Special Guest Star Kirk Cameron!

POP AT ME ON TWITTER! @PopCultureKari

Hello Pop Culture Beasties! It’s your old pal Kari. I’m here to feed you the pop culture you crave. Let’s feed your hungry belly first! With pop culture’s favorite snack, popcorn!

I make the best popcorn. That is not opinion; that is a fact (I will accept challenges). I pop it in this really old pot from 1971 that my parents got for a wedding gift. It outlasted my parents’ marriage. I still use it for popcorn, because it’s The Best Popcorn Pot That Ever Was (which, incidentally, was also a Movie of the Week in 1986). Here it is with a really prime pop--your basic grocery store variety!

It was harvest gold once, just like everything in the ‘70s. 

Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy. 

CLICK AND RAWR TO POP PAST THE JUMP!

Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. And preparation is key to a successful pop! Distracted by watching Twilight (more to come on that next week!), I was in the middle of popping a pot of popcorn before realizing I was out of butter. What's a girl to do? I assessed my meager pantry and decided on a substitute: a couple of capsful of canola oil for texture, some Lawry's seasoning salt for flavor, and a few flicks of hot sauce for kick! That'd do the trick! 

Or would it? I don't really know how to cook. My dining philosophy is heat up, take out, or eat out. So this was a culinary adventure for sure. I'd never put plain oil or hot sauce on popcorn before. It was an instinct borne of nature, and 1980s childhood Fridays watching Mr. Belvedere and other sitcoms, munching popcorn as a weekend treat. I’d eat the leftovers watching Saturday morning cartoons! ::insert bourgeois judgment here:: Sometimes, if I was lucky, my parents would pop me a bowl for The Cosby Show (Tuesdays) or Growing Pains.

That was on Wednesdays, with heartthrob-to-abstinence-evangelist Kirk Cameron/Mike Seaver (see his abstinence PSA here). I’m sure he is more proud than chagrined at all the ways he helped young people discover masturbation via Tiger Beat, given his abstinence stance.

CUT TO: Dr. Joycelyn Elders making “cut it! cut it!” gesture across her throat. 

INT. LAPTOP. Kari maintains her point, is forced to resign as U.S. Surgeon General.

You know something hot I’m not abstinent from? Well, it has the letters P! O! R! and N!

That’s right. . .POPCORN! Okay, pop culture fans, let’s get back to the point. All Kirk Cameron talks about is sex, and he distracted me. Where were we? Wholesome snacks? Okay. 

Previously, on Kari Tervo: 

I assessed my meager pantry and decided on a substitute: a couple of capsful of canola oil for texture, some Lawry's seasoning salt for flavor, and a few flicks of hot sauce for kick! That'd do the trick! 

Or would it?

FADE IN. 

I popped the popcorn. I swirled on the oil. I shook the salt. And I flicked the fiery sauce! Would this be. . .okay? I chose a puffy piece glistening with a drizzle of canola, sparking and sparkling with that salt and hot sauce. I took a crunch, and:

 

In the name of all that is good and holy! Running out of butter is the best thing that has ever happened to me. My long-standing relationship with popcorn has evolved. We can figure it all out, as long as we have a butter. I mean, each other. Show me that smile again! 

Oh, you got a little popcorn husk there in your bicuspid. I still think you’re adorable. We can take anything that comes our way.