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Holiday Tradition

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A number of years ago I bought some “fake” Holiday candles. They looked nice with a rather real flickering candle effect. At the end of the season, I packed them up with all the other decorations and put them out in the garage. However, this was in Palm Desert, and even if they weren’t “real” candles, subjecting them to the heat of a desert summer in my garage was not wise.

When we pulled them out the next year, they had melted, as you can see. My mom looked at them and initially thought we would have to throw them out, but they still worked just fine. And after we stared at them for a while, we realized we actually liked the new look: they now appear to have been burning for a while, giving them an even more realistic effect.

Now every year when we pull them out of the drawer (no more garage storage!), we think about the serendipitous “mistake” we made. The holidays wouldn’t be the same without them.

The wreath, by the way, is one I made 4 or 5 years ago from paper. A true labor of love as it involved hundreds of leaves.

Best Baked Potatoes

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One of the sides I fixed for Thanksgiving was baked potato. I got the recipe from one of America’s Test Kitchen sites; their recipes and research rarely steer me wrong. In this case, these actually are the best baked potatoes I’ve ever had.

  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 4 (7- to 9-ounce) russet potatoes, unpeeled, each lightly pricked with fork in 6 places
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in 1/2 cup water in large bowl. Place potatoes in bowl and toss so exteriors of potatoes are evenly moistened. Transfer potatoes to wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet and bake until center of largest potato registers 205 degrees, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Remove potatoes from oven and brush tops and sides with oil. Return potatoes to oven and continue to bake for 10 minutes.

Remove potatoes from oven and IMMEDIATELY, using paring knife, make 2 slits, forming X, in each potato. Using clean dish towel, hold ends and squeeze slightly to push flesh up and out. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

These were soooo good. The skin crackled as I cut into them and they were the perfect texture. I used a temperature probe in one of the potatoes to track the progress and judge when to start cooking other items. Even my huge potatoes only took an hour or so to cook at that high temperature.