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• Muhammara popcorn crunch

When I think back on the best road trip snack I've ever had, I remember driving through wine country with good friends. We stopped for provisions, settling on a tub of muhamarra and a loaf of good, fresh baked bread. Muhamarra is a delicious dip with various permutations in cuisines of the Middle East. As we had it that day, (and as I've made it ever since), it's a mixture of walnuts, red pepper, pomegranate molasses, lemon, and cumin. It's delicious, but eating it as we cruised up Highway 29 through Napa Valley admittedly took some negotiation from me, the driver. Every time I wanted a bite, I had to talk one of the passengers into ripping a hunk of bread off the loaf and spreading it with muhamarra for me. <br /> <br />For this new recipe, I wanted to recapture the flavors of muhammara and that perfect summer drive, but in the form of a road trip snack that could be easily enjoyed by the driver, too. So I tossed popcorn and toasted walnuts in pomegranate syrup and crushed red pepper, lemon zest, cumin, salt-- all the flavors of muhamarra, but in a new permutation. This crunchy popcorn and nut combination is sweet and sour from the pomegranate and lemon, spicy from the red pepper and cumin, and of course has the salty kick that popcorn demands. I snacked on it while I was making it, I snacked on it-- straight out of the oven-- while it was crisping up at 350 degrees, I snacked on it while I was trying to take pictures of it, and I am snacking on it now. When I'm done writing this, I'm going to take it for a drive and snack on it some more.

Oct. 1, 2021, 11:49 a.m.

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