This is not to be confused with National Popcorn Day, which is in January. Popcorn is one of my favorite snacks, and my go-to treat when I’m at the Disney parks. I don’t like liquid butter on my popcorn, so I skip movie popcorn, but my favorite popcorn is found at Les Schwab Tire Centers.

I’m not alone in this love affair. Americans eat about 17 billion quarts of popcorn every year, more than any other country. I figured that was mostly movie popcorn, but only 30% is consumed outside of the home.  At home, I make my popcorn in an air-popper and only put salt on it, so it’s a relatively healthy snack. However, there is a great variety of toppings you can put on popcorn from caramel to chili powder.

When I was a kid, we gave out homemade popcorn balls at Halloween. This was in the 1970s before parents were concerned about tricks among their children’s treats. Our popcorn balls were a manageable size. The world’s largest popcorn ball was 12 feet in diameter and weighed 5,000 pounds.

Do you love popcorn? Do you eat it at home? What is your favorite topping? Enjoy some popcorn today in honor of Popcorn Lover’s Day. While you are at it, get your tires checked.

I don’t try recipes often, but occasionally I get a yen and hunt the internet for ideas. The funny thing about recipes is you can’t tell how good they are. Every blog brags about how good their version is, even if it isn’t. I found one that suited the ingredients I had, so I tried it.

Bad idea.

The recipe was for jicama fries. The blog said they were crispy and spicy. Well, they did have a pleasant spicy flavor because I used the same seasonings that I use on my California fries. However, the jicama gave off so much steam that the fries were never going to get crisp, even though I followed the directions and didn’t crowd them.

Raw jicama is crunchy and tangy. It’s excellent in salads and when dunked in ranch dip. Baking them did not improve their texture or flavor, so I won’t do that again. At least I won’t have to wonder if jicama fries are good. They’re not.

Do you use a lot of recipes from the internet? How do you pick a good one? Do you cook with jicama? I’d love a simple recipe that tastes good. For me, simple is essential.

At first, this seemed odd to me, but then I remembered that George Washington may or may not have cut down a cherry tree, and his birthday is Saturday, so it makes sense that Cherry Pie Day would be in February.

I’m not a huge pie fan and prefer the cherry cobbler my grandma used to make, but I wouldn’t turn a slice of cherry pie if someone baked one. I do like to eat cherries, so I thought I would include some fun cherry facts instead of cherry pie facts (I’ll let you google that one.)

Fun Cherry Facts

• A cherry tree has about 7,000 cherries (that is enough for 28 pies!)
• Thanks to mechanical tree shakers (check out this video), a cherry tree can be harvested in seven seconds
• Most cherries are either sweet or tart
• Sweet cherries are grown in California, Washington, and Oregon and are usually eaten fresh
• Tart cherries are grown in Michigan and Wisconsin and are used for baking
• Cherries are a healthy snack with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals (plus they are low in calories)

Let me know if you like cherries and/or cherry pie. Do you make your own or buy it from the store?

I like to eat clams, so I only complained a little (well, maybe more than a little.) To get out of the kitchen, I hid in my office and researched clams. That is where I learned about the giant clam. I’m happy my hubby is not cleaning one of these bad boys, but they are remarkable.

Fun Facts about Giant Clams:

• Giant clams can live 100 years or more
• They can grow to four feet in diameter and weigh more than 500 pounds
• Giant clams do not move. Once they fasten to the reef, they sit there for the rest of their life
• They live in the warm waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans
• Giant clams may be huge, but they survive thanks to algae. The algae live in their tissues and produce sugars and proteins that the clam consumes. In exchange, the algae get a safe home and access to sunlight when the clams open its shell
• The giant clams also have a siphon so they can filter plankton from the water
• Even though they are almost as tall as a human, they are not man-eaters. Rumors, aside, their shells close too slow to catch a swimmer

Saturday is a great day to make spaghetti. The sauce can simmer longer, and everyone can linger around the dinner table. Or you can go out to eat and have unlimited breadsticks and salad before you stuff yourself with pasta.

I prefer medium shells to spaghetti noodles, but I’m fond of spaghetti sauce (my hubby makes a great sauce.) I especially like it with meatballs. No matter the pasta shape, I call it spaghetti.

Americans eat about 20 pounds of pasta a year. Most families have spaghetti about once a week. I did as a kid, but I have it less often now. Although when we make a batch, we eat if for three days, so it might average out.

Ever wonder how pasta is made? I watch a lot of cooking shows and love watching the crazy length that pasta dough grows to (like in this America’s Test Kitchen video), but it’s also fun to watch millions of pounds of pasta being made. (Beware watching just one How It’s Made video though because it’s hard to stop.)

I think the best thing about spaghetti is that everyone has their own recipe, so no two dishes taste alike. That can be true even in one household. My hubby’s spaghetti sauce is never the same twice, but it’s always tasty. What is your favorite sauce? Do you make it yourself, or does it come out of a can or jar? Perhaps it’s from a powdered packet like my mom used when I was a kid? Or do you make it from scratch like my aunt? I didn’t bother including any recipes here because I figured we each have our own.

I love trying new things. Setting up the Footle and Grok podcast has forced me to try a lot of new programs, and I haven’t mastered them yet. However, all the tech stuff I’m learning is more like work. It’s exciting but necessary.

I prefer to try new things that are fun. When I went to Disneyland by myself in September, I vowed to experiment. I’d been to Disneyland dozens of times but usually ate at the same restaurants and rode the same rides. This time I had lamb at Bengal Barbeque that was terrific and loaded fries at Galactic Grill that weren’t.  It didn’t matter, though. Both experiences were excellent because I’d never tried either of them before.

So, do something new today. Read a book that someone has recommended to you. Try a new exercise, either at the gym or with a video. Cook a new food. There are lots of weird root vegetables in the produce section right now. Thanks to the internet, you can find a recipe to help you figure out what to do with rutabaga or celeriac.

Or go to a Greek restaurant. I don’t know why I recommended that all those years ago. Maybe I was trying to tell myself something.

Kala Christougena! 

Since my moms-in-law are visiting us this week, we had turkey with all the fixings yesterday. We’ll do it again on Thanksgiving with friends. What I forget every year, until I do it again, is how much I like cooking a turkey.

It’s simple, hands-off, and the results are always great. Why can’t all food be this easy to fix? The smell makes everyone happy, and there are leftovers. It’s a perfect food.

I think the turkey industry is missing a bet. Except for an occasional Easter turkey, we only cook a turkey in November and December. Why doesn’t the turkey lobby convince us all to have turkey once a month? We don’t do it now because it’s almost impossible to find a turkey and if you do, it’s really expensive. But that could change.

Maybe the turkey growers don’t want us eating whole turkey year-round. Perhaps the industry’s doing fine with the Thanksgiving turkey formula. I once saw a Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe where he went to a turkey farm. It seemed like a lot of work and a very dirty (and noisy) job.

I don’t think the amount of turkey I eat in a year is going to increase, so I’m going to enjoy the couple I get to make. I’m just glad it’s so easy to get tasty results. All I need to be happy at Thanksgiving dinner is turkey and cranberry sauce. What do you like best?