One potato, two potato, three potato, four .... five potato, six potato, seven potato ... MORE!

Usually, it’s the MORE we hear at our home when it’s potato pancake (“latke”) time each year at Hanukkah.
Latkes are a traditional food for the eight-day Hanukkah celebration — mainly because it’s another way to use oil, a symbolic celebration of the miracle that happened hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago when one day’s worth of oil burned for eight.

Besides opening gifts and lighting the Hanukkah candles, eating latkes is what my family looks forward to each year. My husband, Bruce Wheeler, is known throughout the land for his delicious latkes ... crispy, tasty treats. He usually makes them at least three times during the holiday. His are the perfect example of a Chanukah latke.

This is how he does it:
Grate 8-10 medium-sized potatoes and 4 medium-sized onions into a collander. Make sure to alternate the potatoes with the onions ... (grate 2 potatoes, grate 1 onion, etc. The onion juice keeps the potatoes from turning an unattractive grayish brown.)

Place the collander inside a large bowl. Squeeze out excess liquid from the grated vegetables.

Remove collander from the bowl and pour off the excess liquid, leaving the potato starch. Into the potato starch, add 2 eggs, 2 cloves of garlic (crushed with garlic crusher), 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Mix that into the potato/onion mixture. Add 1/4 cup of flour.

Drop batter — about 2 tablespoons — into 1/4 inch of hot olive oil.

Fry until brown, flip, and fry second side until brown.

You can keep latkes warm in a warming oven while frying up the rest of the batch.

Serve with sour cream or applesauce. (I make homemade applesauce ... because such great latkes deserve a special touch!)

Phyllis R. Sigal is design editor at The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register and designer of Ohio Valley Parent. She is the mom of Amanda, 21, and Leland, 19. And, she is lucky to be the wife of Bruce the latke-maker!