I am told there is a big baseball game on tonight, something about the World Series. I know, I knooow its America’s past time and the Mets are finally getting their day in the sun and people around here seem pretty pumped about it but I am just going to be honest here, I really don’t like baseball. There it is. The last time I went to a game I thought it was over when people started getting up at the seventh-inning stretch – I had crushed my giant box of Cracker Jack so in my mind the game was over until someone got me some more.

Yes, I go to games pretty much for the junk food but in my defense I went to an all girls school (for 13 years) in the middle of New York City, going out to some random field on Randalls Island to watch lacrosse was just not a thing. More Gossip Girl than Friday Night Lights in millennial speak.   And while I like to think of myself as “sporty”, my athletic career includes such highlights as inbounding the ball in middle school basketball (as in that was literally my only job), making a concerted effort to move in the opposite direction of the ball on the soccer field, and being forced to attempt the vault every week in gymnastics, but each time i sprinted loafed towards the springboard I ended up slamming into the damn thing instead of effortlessly twirling over it.

Homemade Cracker Jack is more my speed.

What I like about this recipe as opposed to one for the more traditional caramel corn is that you do not have to stand over boiling sugar waiting to see that hint of caramel color only to have it burn in the half second it takes to grab your oven mitt. You are still boiling sugar which might seem scary but you are just getting it to a certain temperature so clip your candy thermometer to the side of the pot and as it approaches 250˚F just hover with your oven mitts already on. No problemo.