PAPER OR PLASTIC

Remember way back when the clerks at the grocery store used to ask if you wanted your groceries packed in paper or plastic bags? Remember when they started phasing paper bags out and you had to specifically request paper bags?  You might not remember this, but I do because my dad would specifically ask my mom to remember to get paper bags, he needed them.  Why did Dad need paper bags you ask?  Popcorn.  Dad needed paper bags to make popcorn!  His secret to great, buttery, salty popcorn lied in the...paper bag.  He would air pop the popcorn into this great big blue tupperware bowl.  He would systematically dump the popcorn from the bowl into the paper bag.  He would then dump melted butter and salt on the contents of the bag, roll down the rim and shake the bag like it was a polaroid picture (I borrowed that analogy form a song, but I think it fits.)  One he had adequately buttered and salted the first batch, he would pop another batch, add it to the bag and repeat the butter, salt drowning and shaking process and then, pop another batch.  Dad, would fill the paper bag with popcorn and then pour it into large plastic bowls for each of us.  He would always eat his portion from the big blue bowl.  Sometimes Dad would let us have popcorn for supper, that's right, popcorn as our meal.  Those were the days!  I hadn't thought about paperbag popcorn for a long time and then just the other day, we got a random paper bag at the grocery store.  I couldnt' wait to get it home and drown air popped popcorn with enough butter that it would soak through the paper bag making those familiar grease stains, the ones that would eventually create a hole in the bag forcing Dad throw out that bag and get a new one. Marty was impressed with how the paper bag made covering every kernal with an even amount of butter and salt, so easy.  Usually a huge, glass measuring cup filled with melted butter makes me think about the size my ass is sure to get when all of that butter ends up there, but I couldnt' help it ,just having the bag made me want to really drown the "healthy" air popped corn, in all the stuff that makes it good, butter, lots of it and salt.  I poured the popcorn into one giant plastic bowl and we devoured ALL OF IT, scraping the last few kernals through the grease and salt at the bottom of the bowl!  Thanks Dad, for showing me how to make the best popcorn ever!  Go ahead, get yourself a paper bag and indulge!!!