I swear I’ll get back to deep and thoughtful posts soon. But something happened this week and I just couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it. It’s important.

I bought a new potato masher.

I already had a potato masher, but it had issues. I’m sure the skill of the operator has something to do with the end product, but the old black plastic masher never did an acceptable job at lump removal. Lumpy mashed potatoes are no fun unless you’re deliberately going for some rustic-looking recipe from a Food Network show where the cook says “y’all” and tells you to leave the skins on and dump in a stick or two of butter. My only reliable technique for obtaining smooth mashed potatoes was to use my hand mixer and whip them up, but that meant digging out the mixer and the beaters, moving to where there’s a free plug, and washing more dishes. Not to mention the racket.

Weeks ago, at Ikea, I cradled a potato ricer in my hands and asked my husband if we could keep it. As usual, he told me to go ahead and get it if I wanted it. I hesitated at such an impulsive purchase, and asked a friend we were shopping with about his experience with potato ricers. He told me he adheres to the Alton Brown philosophy of kitchen gadgets: Don’t buy gadgets that are only good for one thing.

Ikea’s IDEALISK

He was right, of course. Buying a bunch of specialized kitchen implements is really a waste of money and storage space. How often does the average person pit cherries or slice eggs? I’ve been trying to downsize my kitchen junk, and a ricer would take up space much more often than it would be useful. And it sure looks like a pain in the ass to clean.

So little IDEALISK went back into the bin and I moved on to the textiles section without looking back. But my unlumpy mashed potato needs remained unmet, and I was sad.

A week later, I completely caved and bought a new potato masher. Which, if you think about it, is as much a single-purpose item as a potato ricer, making me a liar. But since I already had a masher, I felt like this was somehow a less frivolous purchase. It was a replacement. An upgrade.

Left: old boring masher. Right: NEW AND SHINY!

I love that the handle is across the top, because you can get more muscle behind your mashing that way. It’s much easier to clean than my old masher, and the potatoes are a lot more smooth. Not perfect, but I guess nothing but a good whipping will ever get all the lumps out.

(Links in this post are Amazon affiliate links, and you can read more about them here. I only link to stuff I love and recommend.)