the early bird special

Foods you can feed my boyfriend after he has his wisdom teeth removed:
1. Buttermilk Mashed potatoes.*
2. Chocolate pudding.**
3. Snickerdoodle Ice Cream***

*Peel four potatoes and cut into quarters. Boil in very salty water until they are as soft as a banana. Drain and plop right into the tupperware where you'll store them. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cup of buttermilk and mash with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy. I cannot understand why anyone owns or uses a potato ricer as I can't imagine that utensil creates a comparable consistency with the same minimal effort. Plus it is a pain to clean and I don't have a dishwasher. Add more buttermilk as needed and crack fresh pepper over the whole mix. It's not really necessary to use buttermilk for this recipe, but it sounds fancy and I happened to have some leftover from the red velvet cake I made for Kim's birthday last weekend.

**For the record, I make fabulous pudding from scratch, but Cody infuriatingly prefers Snack Paks which I'm positive contain no actual dairy or cocoa. Don't get me started.

***Yesterday, we visited third specialty ice cream shop to open within 5 blocks of my house in the last few months. BlueBird Homemade Ice Cream and Tea Room is run by a bunch of boys who appear to be about 22 years old and what they lack in behind the counter experience, they totally make up for endearing explanations of why they like to make snickerdoodle ice cream, even though the consistency of the brown sugar makes impossible for the ice cream to set up firmly. Then, they get bonus points for confiding that while in spite of its pleasant gustatory properties, their Elysian Stout Ice Cream smelled like wet dog. "But no, try it, you'll really like it!" Color me charmed. A scoop of soupy snickerdoodle paired with a scoop of peanut butter made me very happy, ruined my appetite for real dinner, and had the added benefit of not making Cody's mouth bleed any more than it already had.