This was one of the recipes I made in the Vegetarian Cooking class I attended at Johnson & Wales University Culinary School. This soup was particularly delicious because you could REALLY taste the sweet, earthy goodness of the squash, because it was not masked over by heaps of butter or cream. This class was also the first time I had used an immersion blender (industrial stength, of course!). This mechanical wonder pureed our gigantic pot of soup into pure, velvety smoothness in minutes. At home, I will probably use my plain ol' blender, and work in batches. Since I did get this recipe from the chefs at the Culinary School, please note the "precise"ness of the directions regarding the size of the dice etc. I am sure at home, we are all not that precise, but for one day, it was fun to cook with the pros!