The home fries, which our waitress forgot to order, arrived belatedly and were a pallid mess of steamed potatoes and onions sprinkled with paprika to give them a little color.

With the morel recipe, I like new potatoes steamed and sprinkled with tarragon.

But Juliana had used it for potatoes sprinkled with salt.

Also on the menu were steamed red potatoes sprinkled with parsley, and red wine.

This time garlic-mashed potatoes sprinkled with crisply fried leeks were encircled with wedges of red onion and tomatoes, with the chicken's rimming the plate.

Note: This is good with boiled new potatoes sprinkled with fresh thyme.

Even better was a French-cut chicken breast accompanied by yummy mashed potatoes sprinkled with crunchy fried shallot rings.

One might be the simple luxury of a large yellow potato mashed with lots of butter and fresh truffles, another an abundance of porcini sauteed in clarified butter, sprinkled with bits of rock salt and a small shower of herbs.