My old blender-stick suffered a catastrophic attack of gravity a while back, and I never got around to replacing it; so once the soup was pretty much soup, and the pumpkin (already pretty soft after baking) was nice and mushy, I fished out all the chunks (along with some of the garlic and ginger ;) ) and mashed it with a fork. Then when it was back in the soup I (carefully, because hot and splashy!) whisked it all together for a few minutes. I actually liked the texture I got this way - "rustic", still really creamy but with some bigger chunks - much better than the much smoother and more even texture I get with a blender, so for now I've crossed "blender stick" off the list of things my kitchen still needs... :)