Tips!

Never made popcorn before? Here's some tips to keep in mind!

• I see a lot of recipes saying to heat the pan first or test if it's hot enough by throwing in some kernels. Totally unnecessary, in my experience.  
• My grandma, my mom and I have all just: 
• turned on the burner to high
• poured the oil in the bottom of the pot 
• poured the kernels in, covered
• MAYBE shake it up to coat and then let it do it's thing 
• maybe shake it up a couple more times as it's popping to make sure the unpopped stuff gets down to the heat 
• once the popping slows down significantly, pour it into a bowl.
• Heavy bottomed pots are best. If the walls of the pot are too thin then it heats too fast, so more likely to burn. 
• Yellow? White? Black? Organic? 
• I like the organic stuff you can get in bulk at Winco. 
• BUT if you don't have that, I recently discovered that Orville Redenbacher's corn is Non GMO. WHAT?!?! I know right. So there's that. 
• Albertsons (its 3 blocks from us, we go there a lot) has this Black Jewel stuff. It's flavor is fine, good, whatever... it's size is tiny and weird to my fingers. I'm used to a certain grip point. I'm just sayin'. 
• Stick: Butter is not the only option for getting seasoning to "stick" Some will just stick without it, if light enough. But if you are feeling wasteful dumping tons of stuff on and 50% is at the bottom of the bowl at the end, here's what I do:
• Olive Oil (though be warned this is a little harder to drizzle than butter and tends to soak the kernels faster, so you should sort of shake as you pour if you can, depending on the recipe)
• Oil Sprays. THIS. These days, you can buy fancier spray bottles of oils, like my favorite grapeseed oil. Grapeseed oil is really good for you and has a very light flavor that, in the case of popcorn, doesn't get in the way of whatever random assortment of spices you're wanting on there.  Check that it's just oil and not chemical nastiness. If you can find this IT'S AMAZING: http://www.pompeian.com/products/grapeseed-oil/grapeseed-oil-spray.aspx  And I found mine at Albertsons so...bet you can too. 
• Tossing: Some Ideas!
• Use a large paper bag
• Cover your bowl with foil and then shake it up
• Use two bowls and pour back and forth between them
• Use your hands, but that can get really messy :-P