Old smoothies

Restaurant cooks love hand-held blenders, long wands that are plunged into a pot of soup or a sauce. Flip the "On" switch, and the mixture whirs into a puree. There's none of that messy ladling into an ordinary blender, then transferring a mixture back to the cooking pot. It makes pureed soups a breeze.

Many of fall's hard vegetables simmer into beautiful, smooth, and very colorful soups. You need to roast or saute the vegetables initially or simply simmer them in broth. Once they're pureed, the striking color emerges. This happens with all smooth soups. Broccoli simmering in broth doesn't have the stunning hue that it does when it is whirred into a smooth green soup. The golden warmth of yellow beets is spectacular when the flesh is pureed in a soup (these roots are wonderful in any presentation), and so is winter squash's burnt sienna - especially when mixed with curry powder.

Creamy soups need not contain cream. Add whole milk to a pot, and it can enrich a soup. Of course, you can also swirl a little sour cream or heavy cream into a bowl just before serving.

Shallow bowls seem to suit pureed soups if you're offering them as a first course. But for lunch or brunch, ladle them into coffee mugs or rustic cups and sip them as you watch the leaves fall.