LITTLE ROCK — This Dinner Bell column was published Oct. 15, 1997.
It's 3 a.m. and you can't sleep.
Don't stay in bed, sleep experts say. Get up. Read. Eat.
When that doesn't work for me, I cook.
One morning recently, when my insomnia reached the cooking stage, it seemed a good time to bake bread - an easy task with a bread machine - but I was out of yeast. Impossible. What a shock. There is always yeast in my cupboard. I know there is a jar of yeast there. I saw it just last week. But it eluded my sight at that hour of the morning.
The option was Kettle Corn, a recipe from a cousin. She said her mother made it often for taking as a snack to ballgames or rodeos. You can pop it ahead of time, even the day before, because it doesn't get stale.
It's a magical process. Sugar added to the hot oil and popcorn melts and coats the kernels as they pop.
But my cousin gave this word of warning: Watch it carefully. The mixture burns easily.
Instructions said to use a heavy pan or an iron skillet with a lid. My iron skillet has no lid, and my heavy pans are too heavy to handle easily, so I used a medium-weight, copper-bottom pan.
Cooking the first batch went perfectly. I shook the pot constantly, and as an extra precaution, lifted the pan a couple of inches above the burner periodically during the popping to moderate the heat. When I removed the lid,there were perfectly popped kernels glazed with sugar. Nothing burned.
I spread the sugar-coated kernels in a flat dish, and the few kernels that stuck together broke apart easily when cooled.
There was a small amount of caramelized sugar in the bottom of the pan, but I reused the pan for the second batch without worrying about it.
Because the first tasted a little bland, I added salt to the second. It turned out OK, too. No fire hazard so far. But it was too much salt.
To the third batch I added half as much salt, and it was better but still too salty.
For the fourth batch, feeling that the caution about burning a batch was exaggerated, I tried brown sugar instead of granulated and reduced the salt by half again. Saltwise, it was just right, but sugarwise, what a mistake. The brown sugar didn't melt as fast as the granulated. It stuck to the bottom of the pan. It didn't really burn. At least there was no flame. And no smoke ... well, maybe just a bit. The range-hood vent and the ceiling fan were on, but the smoke alarm went off anyway.
In the quietness of 3:30 a.m., a wailing alarm seemingly registers at twice the normal decibel. The embarrassment of having a caravan of firetrucks, sirens blaring, rushing to the house answering a false alarm was a painful thought. A quick call to the fire-alarm monitoring service saved my reputation. So far, no neighbors have complained.
I should keep the incident to myself, because certain people (those who have unfairly tagged me as a kitchen fire hazard) will use it to exaggerate my fire-in-the-kitchen reputation. I swear, kids, there was no flame, and very little smoke. I swear it.
At least I learned something from the incident - Kettle Corn, delicious as it is, is no cure for insomnia.
Evelyne's Kettle Corn
1 /4 cup vegetable oil
1 /3 cup granulated sugar
1 /3 cup popcorn
1 /8 teaspoon popcorn salt
Place oil and one kernel of popcorn in a heavy, 4-quart pan with a lid. Heat until the kernel pops. Add the rest of the popcorn.
Just as it begins to pop, add the sugar and salt quickly and cover with lid. Shake the pan vigorously all the time the corn is popping. Lift a couple of inches above the burner to moderate the heat, if necessary.
Remove from heat earlier than normal and keep shaking. Quickly pour the popped corn into a metal or glass container or a paper sack. Break apart any kernels that cling together.
Makes about 6 cups popped.
Food, Pages 51 on 10/31/2007