Popcorn

Today I made a bowl of popcorn and this made me think of Ruth.

When I was pregnant, we had to look for a babysitter for those future days when our child would be born and we would both be out working. It is a surreal situation, having to look for a person to whom you trust the care of your first child when it isn’t even born yet.  Through an agency we started to interview candidates.

My reluctance about the situation grew as my belly expanded and in my head I was thinking of giving up my work altogether and forget about this babysitting –  until I met Ruth. Ruth, a sturdy Surinam woman, was the archetypal grandmother. A wise, experienced and warm woman, she well understood my tears several months later, when I came by to drop my six weeks old daughter off for the first time. To me this was the hardest thing in the world to do. I handed Ruth that little pink bundle, and saw how the two fit. Ruth’s arms and chest were made for cuddling babies, and my baby instantly relaxed against her body. It was this picture I held on to and as every day the scene repeated itself it got a little less hard to let her go.

After the first year Ruth took my daughter with her everywhere she went, off to the market or to visit family. And since Ruth had a lot of family living in Amsterdam, I regularly picked up my daughter from an afternoon family get-together. I would walk into a crowded room filled with Ruth and her relatives, lots of food, lots of children. Over time my little girl became one of them, knowing all of them by name and blending right in.

There was always something smelling tantalizingly good in her apartment. Ruth was a good cook, and I am sorry I was almost always in such a hurry to pick my baby up and go.  I could have learned a lot from her. She did teach me how to make popcorn though. When my girl was three or four years old, Ruth used to make popcorn for her. First giving her only the soft fluffy part, my daughter quickly learned to love it. And ask for it. So when I confessed to Ruth that I had never made popcorn myself, she showed me how simple it is.

Popcorn on a stove

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

½ cup of corn kernels

Salt (or sugar) to taste

Put two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Put the pan on the stove and turn the heat to medium. Take ½ cup of popcorn kernels and put them in the pan. Close with the lid and shake carefully to lightly cover all kernels with the oil.

Wait until the popping starts, then pay close attention. When the popping starts to subside, it is time to get ready to act. When there’s a two-second break between the last pops, quickly turn the heat off, take the lid off the pan and immediately pour the popcorn into a large bowl. Add salt (or sugar) to taste, shake the bowl and enjoy.

Before you do that though: put the very hot empty pan in the sink, and carefully but decisively fill the pan with cold running water. This will make a spectacular hissing noise, create a lot of steam, but will prevent the leftover oil from burning and will cool the pan down.