When we moved from Kansas City to Boca Raton two years ago, food was our biggest complaint. Kansas City has an excellent food scene, with wonderful restaurants ranging from the divey to the upscale. With two years of reflection, I think it’s fair to say that average restaurant quality in Kansas City is much better than average quality in South Florida. Down here, we’re disappointed more than we’re pleased.

Given two years, though, we’ve found some gems. Nice Indian, good Vietnamese, wonderful Korean. For fine dining, we usually head into Miami to visit Michy’s or Sra. Martinez. Sushi is abundant, even if it is weirdly always paired with Thai.

What South Florida just does not have, though, is good barbecue. I’ve spent my time in barbecue country. I went to school in Houston. I lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas before moving to Kansas City, where I learned what it’s really about. I’m no regional purist, though. During our move, my wife and I grabbed dinner at a small joint in Paducah, Kentucky that served some of the best pork I’ve had in my life with a wonderful thin vinegar/pepper sauce. (Some of my best friends eat mustard based sauces.)

But when it comes to Florida, our options range from the absolutely terrible (most) to the somewhat tolerable (few). One of the first places we tried when we moved down here was Red’s Backwoods BBQ. Red’s kind of sets the theme for South Florida barbecue in that it’s a bit cafeteriaesque. Sides come as scoops of bland mush, the meat has little flavor, and the sauce is sickly sweet. It’s not the worst we’ve had since we’ve lived here, but we haven’t felt the need to go back.

Shorty’s falls into this same cafeteriaesque category. I don’t know if they have a real smoker here, but the food comes out tasting more like it was finished in an oven. Ribs were somewhat tough, and again a sickly sweet barbecue sauce accompanies your tough meat.

I recently went with some friends to Rock n Roll Ribs, a new restaurant opened by Nicko McBrain, the drummer for Iron Maiden. The ribs here actually were not bad, and when I requested it, they brought me a hot barbecue sauce that was better than anything they had out on the table. However, I just can’t forgive them for their brisket. It was strangely juicy, more a pot roast than a barbecue brisket. But worst of all, they sliced it with the grain. The brisket portion of my combo platter was a pile of ropy, long, tough muscle fibers. I still get the chills when I think of it.

On the more positive side, Jack’s Bar-B-Q Smokehouse in Ft. Lauderdale definitely has real smokers. Shopping in the area, we were lured in by the smoke that wafts across Oakland Park Blvd. While there, we noticed a guy at the next table wearing a Chief’s hat and talking about KC. We struck up a conversation with them. One was a transplant from Kansas City who had been in South Florida for five or six years. The other was a friend visiting from KCK. He claimed it was the best he’s found in the area. I tend to agree. It’s definitely the best we’ve been to down here, but it would be average back in KC. Maybe a Bates City level operation.

One nice surprise was Ribs 2 Go, a roadside rib purveyor we drove by after a long day in Miami that we had no desire to cook after. The ribs were excellent, the best we’ve had down here, and served with a great spicy mustard based sauce. (Though we only used it on some since we had just a bit of my Night Of The Living Bar-B-Q Sauce to use up.) But at $20 for a rack of ribs plus the drive down to Miami, this isn’t something we’ll be doing again any time soon.

So what is the best barbecue we’ve had since we’ve been down? That would have to be the two pounds of Oklahoma Joe’s pulled pork my wife’s parents brought with them last time they visited. Short of that, I think I just prefer to stick with what I can do in my Weber.

I’m a big fan of popcorn. I had my flirtation with microwave popcorn during college, but I went back to popping on the stove like mom and dad as soon as I had decent cookware. So I was pretty excited when my wife shared this recipe with me for “Perfect Popcorn”. It describes a stovetop technique involving bringing oil to temperature, adding kernels and removing from heat for 30 seconds before returning to the burner. The claim was that this will cause every kernel to pop at the same time, so you will pop every kernel without burning any.

Sunday I decided to give it a shot, and it pretty much failed for me. When I returned the pan to heat after waiting the 30 seconds, no popping ensued. After another 30 or 45 seconds, popping started slowly, then popped normally until it slowed, at which point I had about a normal number of unpopped kernels. The popcorn popped, but it really wasn’t much of an improvement over my normal technique.

I’ll tell you what matters, though: Ingredients. First, think about moving past Orville Redenbacher store bought kernels. About a year ago I purchased a sampler package from Crown Jewel Gourmet Popcorn. I bought the insane twelve pound sampler pack just over a year ago, and I’m about one pound from finishing it up. They haven’t all been winners, but the ones that were are worth the extra price. Some of my favorites include the small varieties. They’re small as kernels and they pop into tiny kernels of popcorn about half the diameter of what you see in the store bought varieties. It’s just kind of grab a handful of mini-popcorn. Of the small varieties, baby pearl was my favorite. In addition to the small size, it has a light hull, so you end up with fewer sharp pieces of hull.

The pocorns also varied in flavor. Of the varieties I tried, the fiery garnet had the deepest corn flavor. Other varieties came in different colors, but mainly it was hull coloration. When popped, almost all the popcorns popped white or slightly yellow, even the purple and red varieties.

Butter makes a big difference too. We normally keep unsalted butter around the house, but we make an exception for popcorn. Salted butter goes a long way to giving popcorn the saltiness you want. When we come across it, I buy a stick of Kerrygold‘s salted butter. It has a nice deep flavor that really stands out on popcorn. For salt, we use kosher salt. It has a bit of crunch to it and doesn’t have that off taste the iodized salt can sometimes have. I’ve tried rock salt with several different kinds of rasps, but just haven’t been able to get that to work.

Technique wise, there are a few tricks I’ve learned. I add oil to the pan, I would guess about four tablespoons, and add three or four kernels when I put the oil on heat. I don’t use full high heat, but pretty high. Once the kernels pop, I’ll add the popcorn. I like a lot, and when I make it I eat it with my wife, so I probably use about half a cup, enough to cover the bottom of the pan and almost start a second layer of kernels. Once the kernels start to pop, crack the lid to allow steam to escape. (I forget to do this a lot, and it really does make a difference.) Shake the popcorn every once in a while to keep the same kernels from contact with the bottom of the pan.

When popping a large amount of popcorn, even with shaking I’ll end up with some kernels burning and sticking to the bottom. This tends to happen once enough popcorn has popped that the kernels will no longer throw themselves out of the pan if you take the lid off. At this point, I’ll remove the lid and give the bottom a few stirs with a long metal spoon, then toss again. This will break any stuck popcorn free so it won’t burn too much more. Be sure to put the lid back afterwards to keep as much heat as possible in the pan. Once the rate of popping slows to a few seconds between pops, pour the whole thing into your popcorn bowl.

Buttering takes some time too. I’ll melt the butter in a measuring glass with a spout until there is just a bit of solid butter left. Then stir to smooth out the butter. It’s probably just my imagination, but I think it tastes better when it isn’t melted completely. Be careful when adding butter to the popcorn. If you add butter too quickly, you’ll have a few kernels absolutely saturated with butter and a bunch of dry kernels that you weren’t able to get any salt to stick to. I love my super wide metal bowl. It lets me toss the popcorn while I’m adding butter to make sure I get everything well distributed. Now drizzle the butter as slowly as you can pour from the spout, just going over the top layer. Sprinkle some salt and toss. Repeat until it tastes good.

Now enjoy your movie!