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There are some great sweet potato and squash casseroles to be had! Seek and ye shall find!

My husband and I went vegan for a month and a LOT of the recipes I used came from VeganDad and VeganYumYum. We now use some of these recipes in our regular rotation. Enjoy!

As Harold McGee points out in "On Food and Cooking"
Quote: Waxy potatoes require more mashing to obtain a smooth texture, exude more gelated starch, and don't absorb enrichment as easily. The classic French pommes purees, pureed potatoes, are made from waxy potatoes, pieces of which are pushed through a fine sieve or food mill and then worked hard - to the point of having what an eminent French cookbook writer, Mme Ste-Ange, called a "dead arm" - first alone and then with butter, to incorporate air and obtain the lightness of whipped cream. American recipes take a more gentle approach, sieving mealy varieties and carefully stirring in liquid and fat to avoid excessive cell damage, starch release, and glueyness. End quote.

I gotta be real here. For the home cook, the dead arm thing is a pretty good deterrent. After making mashed potatoes professionally for the last decade, all I can add are the following insights; keep everything hot (potatoes, cream-butter), a food mill is nice if you have one but you can still get great results without one, if you want to use a potato masher go ahead, but then use a good strong wire whisk to incorporate the dairy. The potatoes mashers do just that. They pretty much suck at incorporating liquid and adding lightness.

This is exactly what I was looking for! I, too, am a fan of both lumpy and creamy potatoes, depending on the meal. For this T-day, I was hoping to find a fool-proof (because, alas, I can be such a fool in the kitchen) method for creamy mashers. I can't wait to try it out.

I like Area Bagels in North Park Slope on 5th Avenue, which makes a very respectable bagel - not too big, some crunch to the crust and soft inside. The owner learned bagel making from a place out in Little Neck on Horace Harding Parkway that dates back to the late 1940's when the bagel baking union controlled the business and its quality. I will have to re-try Bagel Hole although I remember not being too impressed years ago.

Maybe my preference of getting a plain buttered (not toasted bagel) let me enjoy a fresher bagel in the store, rather than taking it home, missing out on the short freshness life.

Russets? Why not just use Potato Buds? And also, ditto on the cream and butter overdose; sounds greasy.

These days, I tend to use whole un-peeled yukons and just crush them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. It's a much lighter result that lets the potatoes speak for themselves.

Agree with one of the above posters that Jumbo on 2nd Ave. (Manhattan) extremely underrated, and that both H&H & Ess-a-Bagel horribly overrated. Tal (a chain) is pretty decent. David on 1st Ave. had a great pumpernickel. And there's actually a good bagel now in North Brooklyn: Baker's Dozen, on Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint. But for me, the number-one bagel is "Hot Bagels" on 79th st. & Metropolitan in Middle Village.

Personal Favorites:

Brooklyn: Montague Street Bagels
Manhattan: Ess-a-Bagel

Favorite used to be Bagel Zone (Ave A between 3rd St & 4th St), until they changed their name and stopped baking their own. Was the perfect bagel -- crisp on the outside, soft and bready on the inside...I'd pay a ridiculous premium just to taste one again.

Hah... I didn't finish reading your comment... I guess you mentioned the strainer :p

I used to use a ricer, but it made including the skins a total pain. I finally remembered my mother's method, and it turned out pretty well: boil your potatoes (I do want to try steaming them after reading this though), mash them roughly, then use a hand mixer to incorporate your dairy/butter/etc. I kind of did it on the fly with the dairy proportions, but it worked really well and wasn't as labor intensive.

OK, what is that recipe on the cover of the book? Gotta have it!

I can say that the recipe calls for 50% more butter and 50% more cream than I ever use for 2 pounds of potatoes. The techniques sound good and differ from my technique (actually Joel Robuchon's method) of boiling the potatoes and then heating them before adding anything to draw off as much moisture as possible. I do find that letting the heated potatoes sit after the butter and cream are added allows them to get smoother.

The 50% increase in butter and cream may explain why the mashed potatoes from some restaurants are smoother than any I have ever made.

Regarding KarynMC:
You can NEVER say that only a family member would try to poison a child. Get real, there are sick people out there who get off on doing their dirty deed.

Also,please let me know where those chocolate chip cookies are being handed out so that I'll miss that house. :)