Popcorn is a healthy and safe snack when it’s under your control.

The jury is out on the health risks with modern day microwave popcorn. And honestly, if you think about it, how could it possibly be healthy for you. Many have suggested that microwave popcorn is closely connected with long term illnesses from factory workers. Oprah first brought the issue to light in 2008. Why are we still putting that bag in the microwave? Whether you buy the buzz around toxicity or not, you may not be able to buy microwave popcorn long-term. So I thought what a perfect time to share my LOVE for popcorn and how I prepare to enjoy it as my snack of choice. Many of my friends have enjoyed my popcorn too, it’s been a consistent hit.

I should note that I think it goes great with lemonade, wine or tea! Sometimes even a big ole glass of milk. I must admit my preference leans towards a nice glass of red, with a very open bowl that is deemed my “official popcorn bowl” and my feet propped up somewhere, curled up watching a movie. But never fear, you can bag it up and take it to your local movie theater too. Come on girls, we all know we’ve got that carryall purse that can fit just about anything we want to. Why take on the expensive, unhealthy movie theater option, when you can sneak in your own?

Easiest method to pop away.

Simplest way to pop healthy is to use olive oil. Coat the pan with olive oil. And the best way to pop is to get started heating up 3 simple kernels at medium to high heat. Once you hear the three magical pops you are good to go and can toss in the popcorn and lower the heat a bit. My rule of thumb is to have equal amount of olive oil to popcorn, meaning, not over-saturate, but every kernel gets some of the goodness- coat the pan.

Once you add in the popcorn, pop away, shaking the pot until the popping stops. Time allotment depends on how much you use, your stovetop and how your pot performs. I used to use Circulon (consistent fabulous results), now I use Le Creuset… so time and popping varies. Overall I get 99% of the kernels pop and rarely experience unedible popcorn.

Alternative ideas “sweeten” the pop.

Olive oil provides the best flavor and healthiest alternative for your popcorn. And not only does it provide flavor it provides a varietal of options. Here are some of mine and you can just take it from here and create your own brainstorm ideas.

• Sugar popcorn, my very favorite taught to me by a good friend. Usually after loading the popcorn after the 3 kernels pop, I sprinkle several tablespoons of sugar on the popcorn as it starts to sizzle. This you must watch as the sugar conducts heat and the popcorn can burn easily. But the result is worth it! Better than any county fair popcorn I’ve ever tried and personally yours. Additionally sometimes I also add salt and pepper into the process for a little more tang. Of note, if you use raw sugar like I did in these photos, it will carmelize quickly! So you don’t want to burn your popcorn…lower the heat and keep your eye on it.
• Rosemary infused olive oil, chili pepper infused olive oil and others. This is a simple way to add flavor to your popcorn easily. All you need to do is add spices of your choice to olive oil in advance and let it settle. When you are ready to pop, use the flavored replacements instead. Get clever, have fun and experiment!

Baking soda takes the nasty char stains away.

During my popcorn adventures, I also learned the hard way that using Le Creuset might be the best way to cook, but not the best way to pop! Luckily in my recent experience I came across a non-toxic miracle cure for those wretched, damaging and albeit ugly char scars that can occur- good old fashioned baking soda! While Bar Keepers Friend is a miracle worker on your stovetop and other things for the kitchen, don’t use it on your Le Creuset, you are adding toxins to your cookware. And nothing else I tried, except baking soda, works like a gem!

Some snaps on my process to pop. Share your popcorn methods in the comments below!

Welcome to My Dinner Party Series

When I started this blog, I shared I would write about topics that I am passionate about. Cooking is one of those passions of mine. My history with cooking has had ups and downs. I started out my relationship with cooking with fascination. Then we broke up for a long time and we hated one another. But then, alas, we rediscovered one another and we fell in love again. Since we fell in love, about eight years now, I began hosting an annual dinner party for my girlfriends in my home. These parties have become a testament of our relationship. It became the norm from the start that I decided I would stretch the physical and mental boundaries of what I would normally cook for myself and strive for out-of-the-box menus and themes. My early parties were inspired by places out of the country I wanted to visit. Over time, it’s transformed into sharing experiences that I’ve enjoyed. I enjoy going on journeys and taking friends through mine. As an introduction to my dinner party ideas in this series, I wanted to take the opportunity to pay homage to the woman that influenced my relationship with cooking.

Grandma Knew Best

As a child, I watched my Czechoslovakian grandmother concoct entrees loaded with her love, and not to mention Crisco and lard, that absolutely delighted our palates and had us begging for more. In process, I watched her in amazement as she’d open and close cabinets and grab this and that and eagerly wanted to participate as her student in the dishes she would create from scratch. Being the oldest child in my family, I felt this time with my grandmother was special because usually it was just her and I in the kitchen. Sometimes my brothers and sisters would pop in, but they would quickly leave once I shared with them I was the one helping grandma.

“Grandma how can I help?”

“Can I roll out the dough?”

Usually, her creations would come from her memory and she rarely- if ever- I could recall her relying on a recipe book. Her core dishes included city chicken, pierogies, kuchens, kolachkes, beignets and these crazy amazing hamburgers that began as 4″ patties and would miraculously shrink down to 2″ golf balls, served with the creamiest mashed potatoes and gravy- these are the images I remember the most. I wish I would have thought, or my family would have thought to take pictures of her food back then, as I do now as an admitted hobby of mine. Photographing food has become a guilty pleasure I love to share!  I have only my memory to picture my grandmother’s dishes and can almost taste them when I do. The recipes that needed no paper were the ones that she loved to make, and that just seemed to happen naturally for her. To me, it never seemed as though she had to think about it, she would just grab this and that and start creating. While her top cuisines might not seem like the most impressive dishes, I would never be able to tell you all the ingredients and spices that she used, or portions or how long things were cooked at what temperature. The truest testament of her cooking was watching my family eat whatever she served, and we were requesting for seconds or thirds.

Unfortunately when my grandmother passed at the age of 92 in 1998 so did all of her recipes because they were in her head. I was devastated that she left none of these behind. When I stopped spending a lot of time with my grandmother after high school (when I was a child I would spend many weekends with her), my interest in cooking subsided. I had no interest in cooking myself or for anyone else. If I did attempt to cook, it became the joke of “Jenn’s wooden chicken” or pouring whipping cream into a pie, instead of whipping the cream first- how embarrassing! I became frustrated with even trying. So I just stopped and did anything I could to get out of cooking. I was an expert at ordering in and dining out, or eating whatever was around. I hated to cook.

A Change of Heart

When I was relocated to California from Florida in 1999 for a new job in high tech, after spending a month in a hotel and dining out daily, I developed a renewed interest in cooking and just started doing it on a regular basis. I realized I actually really enjoyed it. And something within me changed too. I felt the spirit of my grandmother within me, and began to “not remember” grabbing which spice or item in the fridge or cabinet and just started making things work together. I started concocting like her.

Because I loved it so much, I became more interested in understanding how I could learn more and improve upon it. I shared this interest with my family and started collecting cookbooks. I enjoyed pouring through the cookbooks and then looking to what I had in my kitchen (and usually this meant what I did not have) and what I could use to substitute or modify the often expensive, or complicated recipe at hand. I became quite  creative and resourceful. Over time my love for cooking was renewed and it just became something natural I did. Just like my grandmother.

Sharing My Love

When I started to feel confident enough in my cooking, and thought I was getting pretty good at being consistent, I came upon the idea that I should try and host a dinner party and actually use all the cookware and dishware that I had just sitting in the cabinet for all these years.  I wanted to share my love for cooking with my friends that would appreciate it the most. And I wanted it to be special and unique. For me this meant, primarily virgin dishes- dishes I had never attempted to cook before. Now, any cook or host will tell you this is a certain recipe for disaster. As crazy as it might seem, I feel this is part of my adventure and love for cooking. Trying new things and sharing with those that I love helps me to learn and appreciate more of what I am doing. A twist to my grandmother’s repetition, but one I know she would appreciate.

Truth be told, I’ve been lucky. But that’s because I have my grandmother in my soul in that kitchen every time I’m in it. I believe her spirit gives me guidance. The dishes I make are never easy and they are, in homage to my grandmother, 100% from scratch.

By far, one of my most nerve wrecking cooking challenges was a dinner party I threw last year, when I decided to take on pierogies. A dish that was far by far the most intimidating to me,  given the experience of watching her make them year after year. It wasn’t her recipe of course, because she took it with her, but I know she would have been proud of the end result because I felt it was pretty close to her authentic recipe. It was a true labor of love taking over 8 hours and ultimately two days for all the prep to final delivery. And, it really was the first time I truly appreciated the effort she made for us seem… well, effortless!

Jenn’s Dinner Party Series- For the Love of Cooking

Since I’m a marketer and tracking things in a spreadsheet is how I organize most tasks, I captured my dinner parties on spreadsheets and saved recipes in stacks stapled together (I know I should be more digital, but I still keep printouts). So, I thought I would share some of my themed dinner parties over time. Maybe it will inspire you to try something new, or different and not care about what happens, because you did it with a love for cooking. I also thought when I’m planning these things, I never can find really good ideas that I actually can get my mind around. A little originality is a good thing! And I think too, that I’m glad I have this written down somewhere, because it still saddens me that I don’t have those recipes that grandma used to make. While my recipes aren’t my own, the ideas in how I put them together are. And, if I can do it, anyone can. All you need is a little love! The dinner parties I’ll be sharing are:

• Let’s go to Italy
• A San Francisco Thanksgiving
• Greek adventure
• Fiesta Espana
• Comfort gourmet cuisine
• Foods that warm the soul

I’ll also share with you that over time I have definitely learned that taking on too much is crazy, and for the best dinner party experience, don’t kill yourself. Remember you are doing this out of love for you and your guests and you want to have fun and enjoy it! I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

And I have so much thanks to give to my grandma. I never had the opportunity to tell her that…but I know she knows I share her love for cooking because she’s in the kitchen during every cooking journey. This is for my grandmother, with love.

I have to admit, I’m a social media addict. Because I’m so connected most of the time, it’s fair to say that I get about 90% of my information on what’s happening in the world from sources and people that I trust. Really that breaks down to BRANDS that I trust. I’m very selective with who I follow and personally I haven’t been focusing on number of follows I have, as all my tweets are also connected to my LinkedIn account. I’ve spent much time building upon my network, and this is my major influencer channel that I can reach. Linking your Twitter to your LinkedIn account is a super fast easy way to “chat” with your audience. I LOVE social media. I love what it’s done for me, personally, and professionally. I also love staying connected and feeling like I am with the pulse of relative, important information real-time. I feel that those that I follow are personal brands that I trust. And because I trust their personal brand, I trust the information they share to also share with my network.

My Personal Branding Story

It’s the new year and that usually means there’s a lot of buzz going about branding. This year in particular I’ve been seeing a lot of discussion on personal  branding. I thought I would share my story, maybe it will inspire you, to understand and see the value of building a personal brand. As a marketeer, I knew many things about how to market other people’s products, but I didn’t know how to market or develop my own product- ME.

I worked for Intel for 6.5 years. With Intel, I had a major brand in my corner. And you better believe I used that brand, supported by the pride I have in that brand, for both my personal and professional connections in life. When I would say, “I work/worked at Intel”, it meant something to everyone. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Working for a major brand has it’s pluses and minuses. Some would say that the big brand folks are difficult to work with, or do they do any work at all? And others would say, wow the strategic school of Intel means that you know how to get things done. Regardless of opinion, Intel was my BRAND. I was Intel and Intel was me. Or so I thought…

Until I was laid off during big layoffs in ’06. When I lost my job I lost my identity and sense of who I was. I didn’t know how to describe who I was outside of working for Intel or what I did there. I was pretty lost and scared. How did I lose my sense of my own identity? How would I find it, what was it, or did I ever even have one at all? In my time of searching, quite near after I was laid off, I came across Tom Peters and his personal branding steps. I still have the brandyou- Tom Peters pdf I downloaded from the screen capture of how to build your personal brand. I share this with friends and professionals I consult with. I use it as a formula to help others build out their brands.

Your Brand Communicates Value

When I lost my job the first time (now I’ve been laid off 2 times since), I didn’t understand or have an easy time clearly and consistently communicating my value to an organization. Once I took the time and went through the personal branding exercise, it became very clear to me what I do and what I bring to the table that is unique. Standing the test of time, Rejuvenate Marketing is my “consultancy” arm of Jennifer Cook, but it is in fact, Jennifer Cook, from everything including the colors I chose, the theme of rejuvenate and what that word means to me.

I have a portfolio presentation full of “stories” that represent my brand and I can map them to my brand- Rejuvenate Marketing.  I can also tie everything back to my “tagline” or “bumper sticker” as Tom Peters would reference it -”rethink, refresh, renew”.

With or Without a Job, Your Brand is Important to Understand

The best thing you can do for yourself throughout your career, whether you are on a job search or not, is understand your value. And I think that the best way for you to understand your value is to build out a personal brand. So that not only you can visualize it, but others can too. Being laid off 3 times in 5 years, I would also add, that you should never not be on a job search, or at least stay connected with your networks and continue to build your own personal empire. 100% of my new job opportunities have only come from networking this time around. Networking works. Period.

A personal brand is your personal empire. It is YOU, who you are, what your represent, what you care about. And you must LOVE it for it to stand the test of time. It’s 2012 and in 2006 I built out my personal brand. It was an exercise that took no more than a few hours for me to do. Once I had my brand figured out, I put together supporting materials. Now that it’s six years later, I have complete stories of where I’ve gone and what I’ve done and how I’ve contributed to the bottom line, that all relate to my brand. My personal brand is me and I’m glad I took the time to listen to develop one.

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this topic. And kudos to Tom Peters, who is my personal branding guru that I have learned a lot from, and have never really ever even met the guy. He is a great one to follow! @TomPeters

Now that I’m set up, I wanted to blog about the last few months and what I’ve been doing since I haven’t been working. I think that the hardest thing about working is that we often don’t have time to do the things that we are passionate for. I’ve been lucky, because the 2 times I’ve been laid off (a total of 3 times in 5 years), I’ve had the amazing opportunity to figure out and learn more about what I’m passionate for. You would think this would be easy… But for me to get my mind around really wanting to contribute and put my time and effort into an event, I really have to know more about what it is I’m doing and why it matters.

Discovering My Passion- An Inspirational Leader
My passion, thanks to working with a surgeon in San Diego during my last lay-off, ended up becoming hunger. I worked to help establish the brand, renaming, messaging, web content and “story” (including a video I produced from my iMac) for Meals4Hunger .

Living in SoCal and being beachside I was completely unaware of the fact that there was hunger literally in my own backyard. I was stunned to learn how many were homeless and didn’t have enough to eat in a place where I watched “The Real Housewives of Orange County” as my guilty pleasure.  I threw myself into the research working with Dr. Sunil Bhoyrul, a bariatric surgeon, and put together facts and figures during my few months of consulting to help this amazing man, ONE man mind you, build out his passion and dream of ending hunger in San Diego (and expanding from there).

Because it truly only takes ONE to make a difference. One person to get it started, to have a vision, to have that passion and that goal to succeed- no matter what. And today, I’m happy to share the organization is thriving and growing! It’s exciting to watch and see this one man’s vision become a TRUE reality for southern California. Much like you won’t ever see on the “real xxx of xxx”.

San Francisco Hunger Organizations Inspire
I ended up in San Francisco moving from my beach abode and ocean view to come back to the city to charge up my career again. I was relocated and then after 8 months laid off. I didn’t have time to participate in non-profit sort of stuff. Or much time at all to engage and become a part of the city I fell in love with from 1999-2005 when I was relocated during the height of the dot.com. But since I lost my job, I started to dig in and find out what I could do that I’m passionate for. I found a great organization named OneBrick (it’s nationwide and growing) where volunteers sign up for a wide variety of events and then choose what to participate in. It’s linked with a social element. So after you do your event, you go grab pizza (Goat Hill is a favorite) and connect and learn more about one another. I started signing up for the San Francisco FoodBank activities. A phenomenal organization that makes a major impact on San Francisco every single day. They are not only extremely well-organized but passionately grateful for volunteer help. And they let you know it, every time you show up and help them.

This week I also had the chance to volunteer with Glide, headed by the amazing Reverend Cecil Williams, another fantastic organization that makes an impact every day in people’s lives. This particular event was to distribute over 5000 grocery bags with 1200 volunteers in tow. My heart was aching and tears came to my eyes as I watched the line onfold around the streets of the Tenderloin area, folks eager to receive their 20lb bag of groceries to get them through the holidaze (as I like to call it). I wondered, do they have a home to cook the food? What will they do after the holiday? I had the chance to meet and speak with Wayne Freedman, an award winning reporter from ABC 7 Local News about hunger and what I learned working with Meals4Hunger. He was struck that I was there volunteering when I didn’t have a job. I told him, that I know I will be fine. But I wasn’t so sure about many of those people in the lines waiting.

Focus on Hunger in San Francisco: Glide and San Francisco FoodBank

Glide ABC7 Local News Interview

Hunger Isn’t Just a Holiday Problem…
With unemployment still at an unacceptable rate and it taking much longer to find any kind of work, what will happen to these folks in line? I also know from being out of work and networking, that if you are over 50 discrimination is rampant, whether we want to fess up to it or not. What will they do? Don’t worry about me. I will be fine. I’m blessed, I have a wonderful network of family and friends for support and a home with a great landlord. A lot of people care and support me. But what about those that don’t have that? Do they deserve not to have enough to eat just because they situation forced them to be there? It’s heart breaking. It really is. How do we stop this from becoming the norm instead of the exception?

I know hunger isn’t a holiday problem. It’s an every single day problem. And it’s spreading in OUR OWN country. A person should never have to wonder if and how they will have enough to eat.

Watching my mother volunteer as a child, I will never forget how she taught me to give back and share with the community. It shaped me.

So anything I can do to help create more awareness for the hunger problem, I’m in. I want to help make a difference. It’s amazing to me how much you can do in a short amount of time to make an impact.

In the spirit of the season, let’s not forget that the holidaze isn’t the only time people don’t have enough to eat. It’s year round. Come January, the need will be the same. And from the latest reports from publications such as Forbes, it’s not looking to get much better any time soon. People are falling off the unemployment radar. I’m not convinced the unemployment rate is accurate at all. No one tracks you after you are no longer getting unemployment. And the lines don’t seem to be shortening, and the need for volunteers at these places certainly aren’t lessening either.

Take a look around you. I’m willing to bet hunger is closer to you than you think. I sure learned it was. Have a wonderful holiday season. Let’s give thanks for all that we have and all that we can share with others that don’t have enough.

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