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Popcorn: MamaCooks

We start with Alton Brown's brilliant microwave recipe sans pesky hidden carcinogens:

• One brown paper bag
  
• ¼ cup popcorn
  
• 2 tsp. olive oil
  

The Super Sweet Version

Make:
1 batch of popcorn
Melt:
stick of unsalted butter with
cup brown sugar

Slowly pour the butter mixture over the popcorn, tossing as you go. Add a dash of salt to take the edge off the cloying sweetness.

The Slightly Spicy, or Should We Say "Soulful" Version (even though after tonight there won't be any spicy or soulful singers left standing -- or sitting)

Make:
1 batch of popcorn
Melt:

• 1/2 stick of unsalted butter with a few shakes each of:
  
• garlic powder
  
• onion powder
  
• cayenne
  
• paprika
  
• thyme
  
• mustard powder
  
• and lots of salt
  

Grate:
1/4 to ½ cup cheese (Parmesan, Cheddar, American, etc.)
Coat all the popcorn with the melted butter then bit by bit, toss in the cheese. Add salt as needed.

Betsy Block grew up in Washington, D.C. She worked in catering companies and casual restaurants throughout high school and college. She spent a semester in Kenya during her junior year at Brown, graduating with honors in 1988. She then worked for a year at the renowned Harvest restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Somehow, a few years later, she ended up in a master's degree program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Just as she was getting dangerously involved with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, she read Ruth Reichl's Le Cirque review.

Next thing anyone knew, she had dropped out of graduate school. Since then, Betsy has written hundreds of food features and restaurant reviews for publications such as Gourmet, Epicurious.com, The Boston Globe, Boston magazine, and online city guides Sidewalk and CitySearch. She is a regular contributor to NPR Online's weekly food column, Kitchen Window.

She has written on other topics for Natural Health Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Family Fun. Betsy lives outside of Boston with her husband, two kids, an aging but still rowdy mutt, any number of wilting or dying plants, and one (formerly) hardy betta fish (blue, now dead).