Popcorn at cinema - shaking up a storm!

Driving through peak time Chennai traffic with rains just on our heels or rather wheels we managed to get to Sathyam theatre in time for the movie. Without wasting any time, we bought some popcorn and nachos for a complete Friday movie experience. Then, tending our prized small tub of popcorn, we headed towards the seasoning counter for that extra zing.

But a war of gastronomic proportions was already on there. And suddenly, I felt like a judge of the master chef contest. Scores of people balancing tubs of popcorns in their hands were shoving and shouldering each other at the station for that secret ingredient.

The popcorn seasoning!

It came in three flavours - Mexicana Cheese, Sour Cream and Onion and Sweet Chili Barbecue. And that was the real challenge. What’s that magic ratio? Some of our seasoned chefs knew their recipes beforehand and took just a couple of seconds to get it right. 
But the rookies were shaking up a storm, a rather cheesy sour chilli storm, if there was ever such a thing, in a bid to get their taste right.

Image grab source - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1696432447117418

Or so I thought, until I watched or rather sniffed closely.

The recipe is quite simple. 

Step one -  add some seasoning of your choice. 

Step two - add some more of that flavour and other flavours as well. Just in case the movie runs out of masala, you will have your own to enjoy. 

Step three - The last and the financially strategic step. Smother your popcorns with the seasoning such that they become invisible. Don't waste time. Go ahead, screw open the shaker and tip it in your tub in one go.  
Two plusses here. You not only get more popcorn per popcorn for the exorbitant amount you paid for those simple corn kernels but it also gives you a chance to make a small dent in the fortune of the cinema owner who has been conning you for your guilty pleasure!

Image source - https://www.behindwoods.com/news-shots/tamilnadu-news/sathyam-popcorn-to-be-delivered-at-doorstep.html

But the lessons didn’t end here.

Some of our super chefs had an altogether new recipe in mind – the potent masala mix. Just grab a tissue paper and yank out your own proportion. Why spend on popcorn when the whole taste is in the seasoning, and that too for free! 

I left the counter rubbing off the seasoning from my specs, trying to hold my breath before I succumbed to another bout of Mexican chilli sneezing.

Sunset on Mars

Like little Simba tottering up to the edge of the cliff, unaware of the territory that awaited him, we too were stunned by the landscape of Wadi Rum. Scrambling over to the top of a rocky outcrop to witness the sunset, we got more than what we had hoped for.

Gigantic sandstone mountains thrusting out of the scorched land, carved eons ago by the sea into canyons, towers & arches were spread across miles. A golden haze hung around their craggy edges as if it were a dreamland. No wonder, Wadi Rum is often said to have Mars-like landscape.

Having driven through the red sand dunes and the rocky wilderness all through the day searching for stone-age petroglyphs and nomadic Bedouins on their camels, the evening view had a numinous repose to it. Even the nearest souls were perched imperceptibly far on another ridge.

The sunset was sheer magic. As the sun lowered through this stratified bastion of sandstone, the sky transformed from blistering blues to raging reds and psychedelic pinks, overwhelming all our imaginations of a perfect sunset.

We stood speechless within the boundless vista as it recounted its story of resistance and abrasion, of weakness and strength and of movement and adaptation and somewhere along sharing a lesson or two on life.

“It’s the Circle of Life and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, ’til we find our place on the path unwinding.” Until then, “Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you.” (Quotes from Lion King)

Ref: 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/wadi-rum-jordan/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Rum