nutmeg: I've Been Living a Lie

Oscars are to LA as smoking is to St. Louis folk or as pretending not be as cold as you really are in the winter is to Chicagoans. They thrive on it.

And I thrive on having an excuse to dress up and serve theme related beverages.
So if A equals B and B equals C, Oscar loves me! And we are so so happy together.

I sent out an Oscar party soiree invitation to most likely 30 people, including Angie, the 44 year old lady I forced into being my friend at the local pub the night before...and about 12 showed up.
So LA.
And on top of that, they were mainly my cousins friends. Which are the best people...but if the word gets back to my parents that I've lived here for a year and some change and still can't coerce people to come to my party, I fear the pity look. Nothing's worse than parent pity.

I've gotten a bit more film savvy living here. The best part about my my cousins friends is that they actually work in this industry. A film editor, a producer a member of Django Unchained....they were all present. But still, I only saw maybe 2 to 3 movies that were highly nominated. If anything, the night acted like a long convincing movie trailer for me.

...And an excuse to obtain sweet vermouth, bitters and Ikes. Without the Mikes.

The idea basically being: fancy cocktails paired with classic movie theater snacks.

popcorn. candy. pretzels. pizza.

The party preparation really just proved to me that I have been living a straight up lie. For years.

Coming from the 90s in the Midwest, I have only ever known microwavable popcorn. And how do you make it? You make sure you put the side up that says "this side up" and then you hit the button that says "popcorn" on the microwave.
...what happens if you don't have a "popcorn" button you ask? Well then, I am sorry to say, you will not be eating popcorn.

The thing that kills me is that this popcorn isn't good.
And you inevitably burn the first bag, ruining it and simultaneously making your house reek during the movie.
And it's not even good!
AND it's unnecessary!

When buying good and plentys for the party (wink wink, nudge nudge), I decided to buy popcorn from kernel. This is a real step outside of the box for me. Or should I say, step outside of the bag, microwavable that is. God, I out dorked myself.
The vision being to make sea salt, garlic powdered and grated parmesean cheese sprinkled popcorn from scratch.

I actually had to look up the directions online to figure out how to even make the stuff- and once I figured it out, I figured out that I had been living a lie.

It was not only so easy, cheaper and tasted ten times better but it was so much fun! Watching the popcorn through the clear lidded sauce pan was possibly better than watching Argo.

Ok, Argo was good...I'm just saying.

I'm just saying, I have been living a lie.

Orville, go F*** yourself.