The best snack

Yeah, have I been busy. Work has been both wild and productive this week, and with my general rule of limiting my time on the computer at home, I haven’t had as much free time to write each day. So, it has been a little while. Anyway, today’s Bloganauary prompt: “What snack would you eat right now?”

I can walk you through a maze of reasoning when asked about my favorite foods. What a terrible question, making me choose among all the great things I’ve had the pleasure of eating over the years. It honestly feels cruel.

With snacks, the answer was immediate when I saw the question. That answer is buttered popcorn.

(I have to get a thing straight right away, though—that does not mean microwave popcorn. Heck no. That stuff is barely edible and might pass in a serious emergency, but not on a standard Thursday.)

Alt text is important.
Popped kernels of popcorn
Popcorn is the perfect snack. It’s light, tastes great with a variety of things added, and is transportable, if a little bulky. As a snack at home, I sometimes make it myself on the stove, but that requires more investment in popcorn than I generally allow myself. So at home I buy bags of the stuff from the store—right now we have some that is flavored with butter-flavored coconut oil and salt and it’s really good. Normally, the kettle corn style is popular here. That little bit of sweet is mighty tasty.

But the real stuff is at the movies. We had a time period several years back where we were at the movies twice or more each week. It was a Golden Age for snacks in my life. I had access to perfect, buttery popcorn (and also a fun movie) on the regular and my stomach was legitimately reflecting that. I had to limit myself because that’s a thing that happens to me. I ate a lot of popcorn at that time and I never got sick of it.

I might also have to explain some differences in my word usage. I have written about something that could be considered snack food and called it “the most perfect”. However, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich can be a full meal (without twisty logic), so it does not count as a snack.

Popcorn evokes memories of movies for me. I’ve had it at a showing since I was as young as I can remember, and through my life I got popcorn just about every time I went to a movie. Continuing on into middle age, it’s still the same thing. When I saw the question, it just popped in there, like a giant marshmallow man. And now I realize it has been too long since I had myself a really perfect batch.

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January 12, 2024
Tags: popcorn | snacks | bloganuary