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Rick Bragg (Gourmet): I always wondered where the magic came from.

It being my mother’s mashed potato recipe, I just assumed it was love.

I have had them in a thousand meat-and-threes, spooned out by ladies in hair nets and orthopedic shoes, and in a thousand perfect bistros, dusted with parsley or parmesan.

None were as good as hers, conjured in her battered pot in the pines of Alabama.

I asked her secret.

“Just butter, milk, salt and pepper,” she lied.

-eddie