The thing is, you have to care about the potatoes. If you think, well, it’s just a potato, no one will know they were a bit soft and a bit looking like maybe they should be buried again once they come out of the oven, then they aren’t going to taste good.  If you think, I’ll just roast them with this nasty smelling peanut oil that’s been sitting next to the stove for a few years that I might as well get rid of, then they still aren’t going to taste good.

Get out there and find a potato that looks like it was born yesterday. Cut a bunch of them up, and without any kind of waiting around, spread them on a sheet pan, season them with kosher salt, drizzle them with the best olive oil you have until each one is glistening, but not too much. You don’t want a pool of oil on the sheet underneath the potatoes. Put them into a 375 degree oven, even 400 degrees if your oven is a bit slow because you want them to be a bit caramelized on the bottom and around the edges by the time they are soft. Potatoes don’t like going in the fridge once they are cooked, so try to time them to come out either right before or up to a few hours before you are having dinner. As soon as they come out of the oven, taste for salt. When they are hot is when you have the opportunity to have the salt make a difference. You could throw a few sprigs of rosemary and a few whole cloves of garlic in with them before they get cooked, but you don’t have to. If the oil is good and the spuds are salted and you had some honest to goodness respect, even love for the potato before you got involved with it, then it’s going to give back to you.