Hints From Heloise

Dear Heloise: If you’re ever in need of some light and have some nuts but no candles, try this: Place a couple of nuts in a fire-safe dish or ashtray and light them. They’ll burn for quite a while.

Brazil nuts and macadamias work well. - Denise Knebel, San Antonio, Texas

Your nutty hint works great! We tried it here in the office (we put a couple on an aluminum pie plate), and at first the macadamia nuts wouldn’t light until we scraped them, letting the oil out.

We had to keep the match on them a while, but sure enough they lit and burned for about 10 minutes. We tried it on a walnut, and it burned but also created lots of black smoke. Thanks for sharing your idea with us. - Heloise xxxx