A Baked Potato Is Like A Blank Canvas

Okay class, we're going to give you a delicious, edible blank canvas. Now create art!

That is how we feel about the satisfying comfort food that is the perfect baked potato. It's delicious whether you go the well-traveled routes of a hot, melty veil of cheese adorned with broccoli or bacon bits, a hearty dollop of sour cream speckled with sharp, oniony chives or branch out into twice-baked territory. Picture a hunk of salted butter melting tantalizingly over the varied landscape created when you slice a hot potato down the middle and scrunch in the sides, gilding the fluffy insides with its creamy goodness. It's so worth the slightly burned fingertips. What's for lunch, you ask? We're thinking baked potato.

The best part is that you can make them almost anywhere. At home you've got more options, microwave or oven and all the accoutrements your fridge has to offer. At the office, surely you've got a microwave or, ideally, toaster oven. Gone camping? Wrap a potato in foil and stick it in the fire for a spell. And if you're on a road trip and want to get adventurous, you can even bake one on your car engine (but follow these directions so you don't get carbecue in your pistons). In about a hundred miles, you've got one hot spud!