Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Wash spinach.
It's the recipe that has eluded us all: mom's creamed spinach à la Julia. The spinach we devoured at Thanksgiving, on any night we came home from college, on Sunday nights with roasted chicken and potatoes, just the three or, even better, four of us. The one my friends talked about for years: “Your mother's spinach: I've never eaten anything like it.” Or, “Will your mother make the spinach if I come over for dinner?”