I use the ricer for mashed potatoes when, and only when, the potatoes are being used in another recipe - in shepherd's pie, for instance, where the amount of butter in minimal and the texture important because they're baking for half an hour afterwards, to be browned.

For just eating? Good old fashioned wrist destroying mashing is best, I find.

Ricers go against all laws of God and mashed potatoes. The only thing a ricer should be used for is making applesauce, and if you're putting potatoes in your applesauce, either you're Iron Chef Morimoto or you're doing it wrong.

Oh, is that what a ricer looks like? Yeah, we used that for applesauce, but not potatoes.

(Learn something new every day. Mmm, homemade applesauce.)

Freak that I am, I hate mashed potatoes (and, really, anything that soft and mushy). On the other hand, I adored the Iron Chef Potato Battle.

Nigella reckons a ricer is the best way to make mash. Nigella can't be wrong.

See, I've got one of those too. I thought it was an applesauce maker but actually it's a food mill.

Leigh, thing is, being good at Scrabble isn't so much about vocab as it is about strategy and tricks.

Hmm, so I suck not because I vastly over-estimated my vocab prowess, but because I can't strategize worth a damn? mini-Wesley I can live with that.

See, I've got one of those too. I thought it was an applesauce maker but actually it's a food mill.

So food mills don't have a crank or anything like that? Because that's what I'd always imagined.

Katie, they do have cranks. It's ricers that squeeze, and food mills that crank.

And I don't know whether I mean porn or not.

Hmm, so I suck not because I vastly over-estimated my vocab prowess, but because I can't strategize worth a damn?

Well, you probably can strategize. You just need to hang with a true Scrabble freak for a while to show you all the tricks they spend their lives coming up with and refining.