Popcorn in a bag

Homemade popcorn is SO yummy!
Have you ever tried colorful popcorn? I picked up this bag of rainbow popcorn in MN, but I've also seen blue, red, and purple kernels available. Believe it or not, this stuff is the bees knees! The kernels pop into the most tender pieces of popcorn you'll ever taste!
But what if you don't have a cool hot-air-popper machine? Or you don't feel like lugging out a big soup pot and shaking it over the stove for a while? Luckily, my Dad came to the rescue... and all you need are these few ingredients:
Can you believe it? Homemade Popcorn In A Bag! Dazzle your friends- impress your in-laws- amaze your family! (I think the hawker at Coney Island rubbed off on me a bit...)

In any event, my Dad found a recipe on Alton Brown, and he generously shared it with me.

First, you take some popcorn (Alton says 1/4 cup, I say a pretty little red ramekin full), 2 tsps olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, and put it into a paper bag.
After STAPLING (yes, can you believe it?) the bag closed, throw it in the microwave for a few minutes. My microwave has one of those nifty 'popcorn' buttons, but I've found that my bags always need a few more seconds than the button allows- just an FYI! After the corn has been popped, rip the bag open and enjoy.
Doesn't this look fantastic? The bag soaks up most of the olive oil, so all that's left is YUMMY popcorn!
Mmmm... this is making me hungry! Is popcorn an okay breakfast food? Oh, and don't forget to garnish the popcorn with your favorite toppings... Salt? Butter? Cheese powder?
NOTE: Yes, I realize that I'm displaying my microwave popcorn in a gorgeous Jade-ite serving dish. But I can't help it- PW has these beauties... and my Momasita has some... and then she sent one to ME! I think it's absolutely DIVINE, and I couldn't wait to use it- I'm officially in love!
That's it for me- I hope you have a wonderful Thursday wherever you are! And, please go home and make this popcorn tonight... you won't be sorry!

Holiday Weekend, Part II

As promised yesterday, here is the conclusion to my holiday weekend.

On Saturday, the boys (SFS and his college buddy RM) and I made our way to Coney Island for the Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest! We were in attendance for the 94th year of the competition.
If you aren't familiar with the IFOCE rules, here are the rules for the contest.
SFS, RM and I waited a while for the contest to start... and the boys were good enough to pose for me.
Finally, it was time to start eating!
Here you can see Joey Chestnut (reigning champ) and Takeru Kobayashi going at it.
This is the view from where I was standing... you can see the eaters in the distance.
In the end, Joey Chestnut was the winner... with 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes... incredible!
Of course, we had to share in the experience by chowing down on a dog... but just one!
I hadn't been to Coney Island before, and it was everything I had pictured.
It was packed, and it seeing all the amazing shops, games and people was really fun.
I particularly like the "Don't be a Paleface" sign... I think they're referring to me!
The people watching on the boardwalk was amazing... clearly, this couple agreed!
The boardwalk went one for miles, it seemed.
We walked past a vendor who sold oysters, and this was painted on their wall.
After walking a ways, we made our way to the beach. We found a spot close to water, and got a little sun.
After some time on the beach, we made our way to a restaurant on Brighton Beach. There were goldfish on the table!
After a fun afternoon at Coney Island, we made our way back to Manhatan. Macy's hosted a fireworks show on the Hudson River, and we were able to watch the show from SFS' office. But first, I was dying to see where he sat everyday!
This is the cafeteria at SFS' office... it's such a cool building!
We eventually made our way to the basketball court. Since the office is just behind the train yards, we didn't have any buildings in the way of our view.
We had to wait a while for the sun to set... maybe I got a little more sun at the beach than I had bargained for!
The sun started to set, which meant that the show was coming! All the fireworks were shot from barges in the middle of the river.
Man, were the fireworks AMAZING! All the barges were in sync, which was even more incredible!
Here are the boys in front of the show- that's a lot of red!
And SFS and I...
This was probably one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen!
Well, that's it for my Fourth of July Weekend... thanks for sticking around!

Holiday Weekend, Part I

I hope you all had a WONDERFUL holiday weekend! Mine started out with a little get together on Friday afternoon- I invited a bunch of girls from my church over for lunch, and decided to go with a patriotic theme. Here's a shot of the spread:
I know- I'm such a dork... but I was having so much fun! I had a little beverage area set up on top of the microwave (space is in short supply at my casa).
But back to the food- I tried a couple things I hadn't done before. First were the Caprese Salad Bites. I think I saw them in a magazine (Martha? Real Simple?)... but for the life of me I can't remember which one! I used basil from my 'garden' and a flower cookie cutter to punch the mozzarella cheese.
There was also a ramekin of Balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dipping.
Here are the fruit kabobs that matched the theme.
And I tried this AMAZING bean dip from Smitten Kitchen. Oh my goodness, it was SO good! I stuck to the recipe when it came to the Cayenne pepper (thanks to my tender taste buds), but it was SO yummy and crunch! I also tried the whole-grain Tostidos for the first time, and am now a complete convert!
I also whipped up a batch of our family's Asian Chicken Salad... it's not summer without this tasty dish!
And I made cupcake pops.
The food was yummy, but I was also really pleased with my flowers. I went and bought a BUNCH of daisies at the florist, and you can see them on the table in the first photo. But I also tried out an idea I saw in Martha ages ago.
Yep- it's a toothbrush holder! I got this one at an antique store in Mason last summer, and am just getting around to using it. The holes for the toothbrushes make a sort of grid, which allows the flowers to look SO full! (Is it weird that I'm posing pics of my bathroom?)

After lunch, we headed over to the Beer Garden. Oh man, did we have a blast!
I always forget to hand off my camera, so my lovely friends provided me with these great shots.
So this is what I did on Friday... it was SUCH a fun day, and it was only the beginning of my weekend! Stay tuned tomorrow for tales from Coney Island!

It's the new LC, baby!

When is it okay to pay $3.52 for a single glass of iced tea?
When your view from the table is Lincoln Center!
I had the opportunity to be at Lincoln Center the other day, and was finally able to explore the construction that's taking place. If you haven't been here in a while, you might be surprised by all the changes! The images above were taken while sitting in the cafe inside the new Alice Tully Hall. In what the architects describe as a "glass curtain wall", concert goers can enjoy the "urban landscape" while still inside the lobby of the landmark Hall.

This view is from the outside, on the corner of Broadway and 65th Street.
The lobby is a bit below street level, which allows for a "public grandstand"... you can see it to the right of this picture.
Isn't this a neat idea?
The three main buildings of Lincoln Center aren't really changing... but the fountain in the middle is getting a WHOLE new look!
Avery Fisher looks the same...
The Koch Theater (it used to be the New York State Theater) is undergoing some changes, but it still looks the same from the outside.
And the Met Opera is as GRAND as ever!
This is a shot at what the LC website calls their "new destination restaurant with public roof lawn/campus green". From the animated feature PBS ran about the new construction projects, this will become a restaurant, whose roof will be a grass covered field that people can use like they would any grassy space in NYC. It should look pretty amazing!
This is a rendering of what it will look like eventually:
Won't that be nice?

And even though it has nothing to do with Lincoln Center, I snapped a quick pick of Columbus Circle/Time Warner Center... I was just SO happy to see a blue sky!
That's it for today- happy Thursday!

Game night!

Have you ever played Celebrity? I like to pretend that it was created by my friends at NU, but apparently that isn't so. In any event, a few of my college friends got together last night for a Game Night, where we enjoyed a rocking game of Celebrity.

Here's how WE play. First, everyone is given a few slips of paper- we went with 6 pieces each, but you can do more or less, depending on how many people are playing and how long you want the game to last. Each person takes the time to right a person's name on each slip of paper before returning it to the bowl. But the term "person" doesn't limit you to real people- you can also include characters names, etc. If you're like my friends and I, this is one of the more difficult parts of the game. You want to include really challenging names- especially ones that will make people say "wow- that was a good one".

Once everyone has put their names in the bowl, it's time to pick teams. You can play with just two teams, or more... just so long as each team has the same amount of people. After team names are created (for scoring purposes), it's time to begin the first round. I'm going to rely on Wikipedia for the next instructions:

One team is chosen to go first, and that team selects a player to give clues to the rest of his or her team. Play begins when the clue-giver picks a name out of the bowl- from that moment, he or she has 45 seconds to get his/her team to guess as many names as possible before time runs out.
In the first round, the clue-giver can say anything he or she wants as long as it is not any part of the celebrity's name or a direct reference to the name.
When the team guesses the celebrity name correctly, the clue-giver draws another name from the bowl and continues until time is up or there are no more names in the bowl.
When time is up, the current clue is reinserted into the bowl, since it hasn't been guessed. The team is awarded a point for every name they guessed correctly. The next team then picks a clue-giver and play continues until there are no more names in the bowl. Teams must rotate the clue-giver each round until every member of the team has been given a chance.

I hope this isn't too confusing, because there's MORE! After all the names have been guessed in the first round, the slips of paper are all put BACK in the bowl for round two. This round works the same way, except the clue-giver is now limited to ONLY two words. The words can be repeated many times, but those are the only two words the clue-giver can offer for each name. After all the names are gone through, the third round continues in the same manner, except the clue-giver must remain SILENT and instead acts out the names, just like Charades. After all three rounds, the team with the most points (i.e. the most correctly guessed names in all three rounds) wins.

Since we've been playing a while, here's the most important thing we've learned: Always listen to the clue-giving with the other team(s)! Even if you're not the team guessing, it's smart to listen to the other names that are in the bowl, since chances are you'll come across them in the next rounds.

Last night, the festivities took place at my friend's house. Here are the yummy snacks he made, along with the bowl of names on the upper left corner of the photo. Since there were 12 people playing the game, we had 72 names in the bowl...

As far as the names in our bowl last night, they covered the spectrum. Since there were so many NU people there, some of our clues were VERY Northwestern oriented, including "Willy the Wildcat", "Virgil Johnson" and "Sherrill Milnes" (the later two are professors at NU). Of course, there were the usuals like Buddha, Jack Daniels and President Obama; there were also tributes to the recently passed, including Ed McMahon and Michael Jackson. We had normal celebrities, including Goldie Hawn, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Lily Tomlin, and Wanda Sykes, but those paled in comparison to names like "Nessa Rose" (a character in the musical Wicked), Donna Martin (Tori Spelling's character in 90210), and Donkey (specifically the one Mary rode in the bible, not the character in Shrek). But please don't think we're all fluff- we also had names like Theodore Dostoevsky and Machmud Ahmadinejad.(Yeah, imagine acting THOSE out!)
We had a great time, though I'm pretty sure my friend's neighbors were happy to see us leave... I mean, how long can you take a bunch of people yelling (at the top of the their lungs, since we're all performance majors and NEED to be heard) random names for hours on end?

I hope you're having a good Wednesday so far!