Jan. 17, 2008 at 4:07pm

Homemade crack, caramel-corn style

(or, what to feed real feed-tacoma friends)

A regular highlight of my week as become the Wednesday night Project Runway girls night with Ensie, Cassioposa, and Jenyum.  It' s a great chance to connect and combine real and unreal worlds: the "unreal" internet and "unreal" reality TV make for an excellent contrast with very real, very fun people who make me laugh and talk my fool head off.

Apropos, then, that I'd prepare a real recipe from an "unreal" friend of mine from a different portion of the internet, caramel corn that I was forbidden to make after the holiday season due to the  intensity of its addictive power.  It's like crack and heroin combined, but in the popcorn-crunchy, sweet, slightly smoky, buttery vanilla-meets-salt, excess pounds on your ass way that only the best caramel corn can be.

The recipe I received contains 2 cups of brown sugar, 1 cup of butter, 1/2 cup of light Karo syrup, which is brought to a boil and boiled for 4 minutes.  It's taken off the burner, then a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of salt are added, and then the mixture is poured over 8 cups of popcorn, spread around, and placed onto large baking sheets on which it bakes for an hour, being stirred every 15 minutes. 

It's yummm in a mouthful, and pairs surprisingly well with Townshend T3 red. So there we were, last night, the four of us, gabbing away while all kinds of crimes against organza were being committed on the telly,(actually, the biggest crime was the show letting go of Kit-- NOOOOOOOO NOT KIT!!!! She's good people! She has fashion flair and a great personality!  Git rid of the overachieving, prune-faced beee-otch, or get rid of Mr Mesh Hat feels a tear coming on, or get rid of Mr Prima Donna mean to Sweet P-- BUT DON'T GET RID OF KIT!!!???!!!), and by the end of the night, there we were with an empty bottle (not hard w/ four people) and empty bowls.

So there I was today, wondering about how many calories I mindlessly popped into my mouth.  So I went online to find calorie info for caramel corn, and discovered the secret, why my corn is so sugar-smack addictive:  One other recipe called for seven QUARTS of popcorn.  Yet another, TWENTY cups.  My lovely-jovely recipe, recall, has 8 cups of popcorn.

Holy Sugar Crash, Batman-- that's alot of sweet, calorie-ladened goodness condensed into one little pop in the mouth.

(but I can quit any time.)

(twitch, twitch.)