FOOD: Extry Buttery Caramel Corn

EXTRY BUTTERY CARAMEL CORN
by E. Fritzius

NOTE: This dish was born more out of necessity than actual invention. And while it hasn't been tested officially and I haven't done the math, it might actually be better for you than regular caramel corn.

INGREDIENTS:

1 box of microwave pop-corn, caramel style. Get either Orville Reddenbacher or the generic Wal-Mart brand. I usually reccomend Wal-Mart, as you get more corn in the box for your corn buying dollar, but with this recipe you're just gonna burn it like a moron anyway.
1 box of Extry Buttery Microwave Popcorn—again, Orville's or Wally World's, your preference.
Microwave.

PROCEDURE:

Microwave popcorn was designed for our convenience, but it's almost as big a pain as popping it over a campfire. You have to watch it like a hawk every second, and even then you wind up burning the hell out of it. In fact, my old college roommate Billy Moody developed such a reputation for burning the corn EVERY time he tried to pop some that he was forbidden to even bring it in the house least he do it again.

"What is that goddawful smell?"

"Billy burnt the corn!"

"Again?!!"

"Oh, yes, my friend. Billy burnt the corn again."

In Billy's defense, though, burning the corn is not a difficult thing to do. You try your best not to burn the absolute hell out of it, but you're a busy person with not much time to sit around waiting for corn to pop. You step away to go have a wee and come back to a kitchen that smells like char-broiled dog keisters. Even the Popcorn button on your better quality digital microwave is not to be trusted. The manufacturers have obviously never made microwave corn, because their pre-set corn setting invariably undercooks or scorches the corn. This is an even more unfortunate tragedy for microwave caramel corn.

For those not in the know, microwave caramel corn has been around for several years. The only real difference between microwave caramel corn and regular microwave corn is that A) Each packet of corn comes with a separate caramel patty in a foil pouch, used to melt over the corn and make it tummy numkins; B) There are usually fewer packets of actual popcorn in a box of caramel corn, and each packet has fewer corn kernels than your average packet of regular; and C) Evidently caramel patties are real hard to come by, cause this stuff costs nearly twice as much as normal corn. You burn the caramel corn and you're out a sufficient amount of your day's wages.

So what do ya do? Well, you could throw away the burned corn and eat the caramel patty by itself. Or you could melt the caramel patty over the burnt corn and try to choke it down anyway. Or you could be inventive like me, dig in your pantry until you find that box of extry buttery microwave popcorn someone gave you as a housewarming gift, or left at your house during movie-night, and nuke that badboy up. And don't be a Billy Moody about it either; you just learned your lesson toasting marshmallows over the last pack of corn, so keep an eye on this one, Emerill! We all want to be able to pop every last kernel in the bag, but it's just not feasible. Leave some kernels whole and save on smoke detector batteries. Besides, by popping a normal sized bag of corn, you're actually going to be getting quite a lot more corn than if you hadn't been a moron by burning the caramel corn packet.

When it's through popping and is unburnt, chunk your caramel patty on top of it and put the whole thing back in for around one minute. Then shake that bag like a mother, being careful not to scald yourself on the escaping steam. What you get in the end, is a much larger portion of caramel corn than you would have had and it will also be extry buttery thanks to the generosity of Orville Reddenbacher. Sure, each piece may not be completely coated with caramel, but them's the breaks. It tastes even better cause of the butter.

So now when you hit the store for corn, go ahead and buy the extry buttery corn along with your box of caramel corn. It may seem like you're spending more money, but you were going to burn that corn anyway, you may as well get your money's worth out of the caramel patties.