Compiled by Polly Campbell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Required reading

When you have a cold and you can handle nothing but chicken noodle soup, it's a great thing to have cans in your pantry ready to go. But for a real cold-weather meal, homemade soup is far more satisfying.

Souped Up (Simon and Schuster; $22) by Sally Sampson is a good-looking collection of recipes: not encyclopedic, but full of good ideas for a variety of soups - clear broths and pureed vegetable soups to thick bean soups and stews. Recipes such as split pea with smoked turkey and cream, fresh corn with basil, fennel minestrone and classic beef stew span the seasons. There is also a choice collection of breads, salad dressings and desserts that turn soup into a meal.

Sampson also is author of The Olives Table with Todd English, chef of Olives Restaurant in Boston.

What's for lunch

A bowl of shrimp won ton soup at Doodles in Hyde Park; $8.50.

It's warming on a cold day, made with a delicate broth filmed with a few drops of sesame oil. There are enough delicate shrimp-filled won tons to make it a meal, and lots of crunchy grated carrot, just-wilted spinach and plenty of cilantro to be fresh and healthful. It's not inexpensive, but it comes with the chance to sit quietly by yourself or with a couple of friends at a linen-covered table in a room filled with light from big windows overlooking Edwards Road, near Hyde Park Square.

Doodles, 3443 Edwards Road, Hyde Park; 871-7388.

Timely tip

Save the money you spend on store-bought bread crumbs by making your own at home. Because leftover hunks of bread made without preservatives tend to harden after a day or two, they make good candidates for pulverizing into bread crumbs in a blender or food processor.

Softer supermarket sandwich loaves will require drying in a 225-degree oven for about 10 minutes before slices become hard enough to pulse into dry crumbs. Store bread crumbs in an airtight container or food storage bag for up to two weeks at room temperature or two months in the freezer.

Chicago Tribune

Quite quotable

"It interests me ... that I seldom think of making a soup for people who bore me or to whom I feel indifferent. In the same way, I do not waste a good soup on people I love dearly who, poor souls, detest the stuff."

M.F. K. Fisher, from "With Bold Knife and Fork"