Eureka

I was all set to tell you about my educational encounter with ants that absolutely reeked of Lemon Pledge--it's a thing; read about it here--but then, as so often happens, food trumps all.

As I was washing five millions dishes this evening, I found myself considering a snack before bed. We had soup for dinner. It was quite good as soups go, but it was . . . soup. Which is not entirely filling. Frankly, it's the bread that usually accompanies soup that is really satisfactory. But we don't eat bread.

So. Snack.

I always find popcorn to be almost mandatory after a soup dinner. But I kind of wanted something sweet. I considered adding chocolate chips to the popcorn after popping it, as several people I know do, but that seemed awfully messy to eat. Then I thought maybe I should just add some brown sugar in with the melted butter before pouring it on. That would be kind of like caramel corn, right?

And then, as I was wiping the counter, I came across the maple sugar.

DINGDINGDING! We have a winner!

The maple sugar came to us courtesy of Mr. Jason, who is given to experimenting with maple syrup. That's what happens when a single man ends up with multiple gallons of syrup. He made the sugar and gave us about a pint of it to try. I hadn't figured out what to do with it so far, but its extremely fine consistency--almost like powdered sugar--made me think it would mix well with melted butter.

So after I popped my popcorn, I melted the butter in the still-hot pan and added a little bit of the maple sugar. Not too much, because I didn't want it to be too thick and clumpy. Then I drizzled it on the popcorn, added salt, and mixed it all up with a spoon.

You know what I made totally inadvertently? Kettle corn. Maple kettle corn. Is there a better popcorn on earth? No. There is not. It was an entirely welcome surprise on a random Tuesday night and just the right thing to cheer me up after a not-very-cheery day.

So, should you ever find yourself with maple sugar, now you know what to do with it. You're welcome.