You, too, Can be a Spud Stud

I feel like writing about something less serious than the apocalypse. I’m trying not to read the news or focus so much on the impending destruction of mankind. I can’t help picking a few things up. I have been informed that Joe Biden is now less popular than shingles, and the Chinese suddenly have the ability to nuke all our cities at will. I’m not trying hard enough.

Every man knows the most painful experience you can have is to tell a friend he was right about something. I am now faced with that chore. My friend Mike showed me the best way to fix baked potatoes.

Everyone knows you can nuke a potato and get an okay result which is fine for dining alone in front of the TV. Not that I do that. Every day. You can also do what I used to do. I rubbed russet potatoes with olive oil and salt and baked them on the rack at 425°. You can also omit the salt if you like a dry jacket. This method works great.

Mike tried to tell me he used the microwave and a toaster oven in his recipe. Horrors. But I tried it anyway, because it was quick, and it looked like a step up from the microwave alone.

It’s very simple. You poke a few holes in your potato’s skin to prevent explosions. Then nuke it until it’s done. For a relatively large potato, I go around 7 minutes in my somewhat-strong oven. You can use a thermometer to find out how long your oven needs. The common wisdom is that the internal temperature should be about 210°.

Once your potato is cooked, throw it in the oven at the highest temperature for 3-5 minutes. This will fix the skin. Best I can do here is 500°.

I figured I was in for a compromise potato, but the first one I fixed was excellent. The jacket wasn’t limp or soggy. It tasted like it had been baked. The inside of the potato had a wonderful flavor and fluffy texture.

I was very surprised, but you can’t argue with empirical results, so now this is my default method for baking potatoes. It’s not just fast. It’s the best method I know.

I called Mike and faced the humiliation of telling him he was right, but then he is a food genius. Without his pizza knowledge, I would not be the man I am today.

As long as I’m writing about food, I just found out about a neat, inexpensive rolling pin. You won’t believe it. It’s a piece of PVC pipe. I’ll post the video where I learned about it.

My wooden rolling pin cracked because I put it in the dishwasher. I have a low tolerance for things that can’t take machine washing, so I didn’t care. I currently use a bizarre pin with a Teflon surface, and I have to wash it by hand because it’s all I have left and I don’t want to ruin it.

Today I went to Tigerchef.com to order something I needed, and in order to make the UPS charge more productive, I added a few other things. I started looking for a rolling pin, and then I decided to research. I saw the video, and I decided to try the pipe before buying anything.

I’m going to get some pipe and make two pins: a long one and a short one. I’ll use the lathe to smooth off the ends. We’ll see if they work. I don’t think PVC can take dishwasher temperatures, but I can find out by putting a scrap piece in the top rack. I may prefer hand-washing for the big pin anyway, because I don’t think the dishwasher can get the inside of a long pipe clean.

Maybe the potato method will be useful to you. I would suggest not criticizing until you try it.