Before we got married, we ate a lot of single-guy food, frequently turning snack foods
into dinner. If you ask us, the gourmet popcorn, potato chips, and hand-made pretzels
here would still make a tasty meal.
479° Popcorn began with Jean Arnold’s fond childhood memory of cozy evenings spent playing cards and devouring fresh popcorn with her family. Her mother insisted on serving organic popcorn cooked in a sturdy stovetop popper that she'd hand crank until the kernels turned into a delightful fluffy treat. Then, as now, a bowl of popcorn could turn an ordinary moment into a special occasion.
Over the years, Arnold experimented with making her own organic popcorn and flavoring it with exotic seasonings inspired by her international upbringing and training at Le Cordon Bleu in London. Along the way, she discovered that 479 degrees Fahrenheit is the optimal temperature for popping corn. She knew immediately that this would be the right name for her popcorn company because it reflects the careful attention to detail that she works so hard to incorporate into every single element of the business. These elements include pristine ingredients, beautiful packaging and a dedication to customer service.
Arnold pops her heirloom, organic kernels in heavy copper kettles, and adds buttery organic caramel or one of her spice blends while the popcorn is still warm. Most ingredients come from family farms in California, and the company sources locally whenever possible. The organic butter comes from Straus in Marin; the organic nuts from San Joaquin Valley Farms in Fresno; the organic popcorn from a small family farm that has been growing organic crops since 1945—and long before organic became a trend.
Fireworks Popcorn Company selects Native American popcorn based on its unique, naturally occurring colors, flavors, and textures. Popcorn lovers everywhere enjoy the distinctive taste of these gourmet popcorns. "Explosion of flavor - grown in the heartland" is how the company describes its popcorn.
Fireworks Popcorn produces 12 varieties of Natural American popcorn. The popcorn is 100% natural, GMO free and grown to the highest standards.
Gourmet Popcorn Shop.
In 1988, Fireworks Popcorn Company was founded. The company’s focus on finding the highest quality popcorns with the best flavors and textures, quickly led it to become a renowned national gourmet popcorn and gift food company.
Headquartered in the community of Port Washington, Wisconsin, the inspirational beauty of Lake Michigan, creative leadership and the strong work ethic of the company’s employees have led Fireworks Popcorn to a new level of success. Our gourmet popcorn shop now offers 12 varieties of corn, a new popcorn seasoning line, and an array of gourmet caramel popcorn.
Luminous Kitchens is a small organic food company based in Brooklyn New York, born four years ago out of the pure love of cooking and baking. Luminous Kitchens produces tasty handmade organic snacks that are wonderfully satisfying!
The company’s organic energy bars are the gourmet third cousin of mass produced power bars. The bars are handcrafted in a small commercial kitchen in the Bronx, New York, using fresh, quality ingredients.
No machine-made pretzel can duplicate the Martin’s Pretzel experience. Take a little tour of Martin's Pretzel Bakery. Step inside, into the din of whirring fans, belts, and chains. Into the high, sweet (and perhaps, slightly off-key) notes of hymns, interrupted periodically by chatter and giggles. The nutty fragrance of baking pretzels scents the air. The singing rollers and twisters--most wearing organdy caps, veils, and long flower-print dresses--work at a table lined with grooved wooden boards.
At one end, the head "twister" silently scoops a spongy white gob from the dough tray, kneads it into a slender log, and cranks it through the cutter, a primitive-looking machine that turns the dough into uniform nuggets. Ten pairs of hands gather little piles of them. With a few gentle waves they roll them, one by one, into strands, that, with a magician's sleight-of-hand, end up twisted into pretzels. You watch again and again, but the gesture remains a blur. Then, presto, the pretzels appear at the end of so many fingers and collect on wooden boards to rest a while before baking.
In 1910, Martin Sidor's Polish grandfather started growing potatoes in Mattituck on Long Island's North Fork. Martin and his wife, Carol, began tending to the 170-acre farm in 1973.
Potatoes, once a key crop on Long Island, were no longer providing enough of a foundation for the farm. On top of these concerns, a car accident left their eldest son without sight and the Sidors were forced to consider the possibility that their third generation farm would be part of their history and not their future.
Martin and Carol considered the odds against them and chose to work with what they knew best: potatoes. But just like their changing circumstances, they had a completely different view this time around. Their prized Andover, Marcy and Norwiss-varieties would lay the groundwork for the now famous North Fork Potato Chips: a company that could continue to grow with their family.
With the help of their three children, the Sidors launched North Fork Potato Chips with a hearty chip kettle—cooked in healthy sunflower oil. Soon, their website was up and running and were selling chips by the case. They then introduced two new varieties - barbecue and sweet potato - and will soon roll out both cheddar and onion and sour cream and onion.
North Fork Chips have been commended by everyone from former New York Mayor Ed Koch, to Whoopi Goldberg who has been known to stock up at Murray's Cheese Shop in Manhattan.
The Sidors radical move proved to be an ingenious one. What could have been the end of an era in generational family farming became the beginning of an exciting new chapter.
Uncle Jerry's Handmade Pennsylvania Dutch Pretzels is a small, family-owned business. The company’s pretzels have been baked in rural Lancaster County for 20 years. The pretzels are found in a range of shops from family-owned delicatessens to Whole Foods, Inc.
All of the company’s pretzels are fat free, made without oil, shortening, or sweeteners of any kind. And, of course, there are no preservatives.
Uncle Jerry's Pretzels are made from a 100 year old family recipe. Each pretzel is individually hand rolled and twisted, then baked in a stone hearth oven.
For over 24 years, Zapp’s has been making potato chips in Gramercy, LA. The company likes to think of its plant as the potato chip capital of the free world. (Gramercy is also famous for Christmas bonfires, which are built on the Mississippi River's levees by local families and lit on Christmas Eve to help Papa Noel find his way to the town.)
Zapp's was started in 1985 by Ron Zappe, whose love of food and great snacks drove him to produce a kettle-style chip that made everyone say, “Wow.” Ron hadn't been in the food business before, so he didn't know he shouldn't succeed...he just went ahead and did it!
Zapp's develops flavors that excite the palate. The company spends a little more than most on spices and flavors, and customers can taste the difference. In fact, Zapp's chips typically have about half the sodium per ounce compared to national brands. The company prefers to add a lot of flavor, not a lot of salt.
Zapp’s peanut oil blend gives its chips a special, nutty taste that differentiates them from the everyday. The peanut oil blend delivers a great taste and a cholesterol-free snack. The peanut oil blend is low in saturated fats, too. Best of all, Zapp's has always been trans-fat free—years ahead of its time.
