Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This thing is amazing. If you like popcorn but really don't want the oil, this is the way to go. No joke—it's totally worth the money. Waitaminute—can't you just pop regular popcorn in the microwave? Yes, yes you can. However, you have to put that popcorn in something, because otherwise, those tiny exploding kernels will absolutely DESTROY your microwave. That leaves us with one little problem: what do you microwave your popcorn in? Plastic containers will melt. Seriously—all of them. I put the best microwave-safe plastic container Rubbermaid makes in my 1250-watt Panasonic microwave and melted it to a smoldering heap of bubbling plastic inside of three minutes. The grotesque amorphous blob of liquified polymer and charred starch I retrieved from its chamber of death resembled something from the final scenes of Akira more than a tasty snack. Okay, what about glass? Glass and crockery exhibit the same impressive heat-absorption properties as plastic, only they just stay hot. As in, double up your pot holders, this is going to get ugly hot. So, you may be thinking: golly Phil, why not just wait for it to cool down before you take it out of the microwave? That would be a great solution, except that if you wait more than a minute, you can say goodbye to the outer layer of your popcorn, which will smolder into a crust that will ruin the rest of your popcorn, which will now taste like burnt socks. No... this is not the way to go. Paper bags are a time-tested solution. They cool down quickly, keep the popcorn contained, and can do the trick well. Another thing that's both true and well known about microwaving paper bags (or just paper in general) is that it's a HORRIBLE IDEA! That paper bag trick will work just fine until that one time (actually, it took two times to teach me better) a kernel gets stuck in the corner and causes the bag to burst into flames. Trust me, flames are not something you want to see on the inside of your microwave. Enter this bad boy. This thing is made from silicone, which means it can take the heat but cools down fast. The lid sits inside and cups the popping chamber, and the bottom of the bowl is concave, which keeps the kernels together so they pop evenly. The result is that I can pop a quarter cup of popcorn in under two minutes in this thing without a single un-popped kernel. The popcorn is nice and fluffy, I don't need to use oil, and there's no papery taste like what you get from an air popper. I couldn't be happier.