Mashed potatoes. The quintessential comfort food. There isn’t anything that a bowl of smashed up taters drenched in melted butter and bursting forth with gravy can’t make better.  Chopped off your thumb in a woodworking accident?  Here, have some mashed potatoes.  Boyfriend dumped you for your best friend?  Psh- not to worry.  Have some mashed potatoes–and you get extra gravy.  Didn’t get the winning lottery ticket?  Aww, stop buying lottery tickets and buy potatoes instead. Why? Because you can make mashed potatoes with potatoes and you can only make a book mark or a redneck toothpick with a lottery ticket.  It’s a no brainer, really.    I go in phases where I want…