Big news and strawberry popcorn!

I only have time for a very short post this week. We are taking a short break at the end of the month for our annual fix of the bushveld with Ashley. I cannot wait! But of course there is a lot to do before we leave and not enough time! I am also doing my very last trip up to Pretoria for work… yes, after 6 years with the Treasury (2.5 working remotely from the farm) I have resigned and finish on Friday! It is quite daunting to leave my life as an economist behind, but I know that lots of exciting new things await. The time has come to embrace this new life of mine and carve out my niche properly, without dropping everything and running back to the city every second week. You will have to watch this space to see what develops!

My former life… with the Budget team in 2011.

On a totally different and unrelated note, I have been meaning to share these photos of my experiment with strawberry popcorn. I was intrigued last year when I ordered a packet of heirloom seeds for “strawberry pink popcorn that grows about 1 meter tall and produces small strawberry shaped and coloured cobs on each plant” from Living Seeds. I planted them and nurtured them and when the time came I harvested the cobs. They have been hanging in my kitchen since March drying out.

When my beautiful niece Sibella came to visit at the end of May we decided it was time to try them. She diligently picked the dried kernels from a bunch of cobs and then we popped them in a pan. It was quite a delight to see and taste the result! The kernels are much smaller than normal popcorn so one has to be careful not to burn them. I think we were probably too sparing on the oil and could have used more to get the kernels to pop more quickly. We had a big debate about whether the kernels should be placed in cool oil first and allowed to heat up or straight into hot oil. I’m still not sure if it makes a difference! As a kid we had one of those air blown popcorn machines which worked like a charm and I’m really wishing I had one now!

Anyway, I can highly recommend trying this for a treat. They are easy to grow and look pretty hanging above the island in my kitchen. One small bunch yielded a whole bowl of kernels and popcorn for the masses. I was rather hoping that the final popped corn would be pink too, but alas, it’s not!