Soup

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

Makes 8 servings 1/4 cup olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 3 carrots, peeled and chopped 4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 5 thyme sprigs 1 bay leaf 2 teaspoons salt 3 cups water 1 cup broccoli florets 3 medium zucchini, cut into small dice 1 can (15.5 ounce) diced    tomatoes 2 cups kale, ribs removed,    and coarsely chopped Two cubes of chicken        bouillon, or more to taste 1 can (15.5 ounces)    cannellini beans, with    liquid Grated Parmesan cheese,    for serving 1. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.

What's my secret for getting through a busy week and still serving healthy meals? Spending Sunday afternoon cooking soup. My grandmother kept a stockpot simmering on the back burner on Sunday afternoons. She'd add leftover vegetables during the week's cooking, fresh bits of herbs, a dash of salt. By evening she'd have a rich broth, low in fat and high in flavor. It became the substance of the next week's soup. Soups seem deceptively simple to make, but creating a truly flavorful pot is a test of any cook's skill.

When it's bone-chilling cold and fingertips are numb, there are few things more warming than a steaming mug of homemade soup. Sure, you say, but who has time to chop, stir and simmer for hours? The kind of soup we think of with nostalgia does indeed involve chopping, stirring and simmering for hours. But there is a way to come close without the time- consuming steps associated with traditional soupmaking. Take, for example, a package of instant soup mix. We may look on it with disdain - and with good reason.

Did you hear just how cold it was on Soup Sunday for the Mummers? So cold that the soup wasn't hot, that ice formed in the beer, and that the cold snap snapped banjo strings. "The cold tightens the strings on banjos. The strings lose their flexibility and tend to snap - like this one just did," explained Jack Brennan, a banjo player for the Fralinger String Band, as he made an emergency repair. Bill Bowen Jr., Fralinger's captain, said: "No matter how cold, we have to drill outside so our guys get a good feel for the street.

Little Pumpkin has grown up so much in the last seven years, it received an upgrade to three bells last week. The tiny BYO's dining room has undergone a handsome makeover, with salvaged planks on the wall, antique tin on the ceiling, and a couple fewer seats, giving the remaining 26 more breathing room. But it's the addition of talented chef de cuisine Christopher Kearse to co-owner Ian Moroney's kitchen that has ratcheted the culinary ambition here to new highs - and a surprisingly elegant embrace of molecular gastronomy.

A reader who spent his honeymoon in Charleston, S.C., asked for a recipe for She-Crab Soup, one of that city's specialties. Here it is. SHE-CRAB SOUP 1 small onion, minced 4 tablespoons butter 1 pound crab meat (about 12 crabs) 1 quart milk 2 cups light cream 1/4 teaspoon each mace and white pepper 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste 1/4 cup dry sherry 2 egg yolks 1/4 cup orange crab roe Rind of 1 lemon, grated Saute onion gently in the butter, add crab meat, and set aside.

Some long-ago book told me to pronounce pho, the Vietnamese word for a sustaining beef-and-rice noodle soup, as far. Because so many of the Vietnamese that I meet in restaurants don't contradict me when I order the far soup, I'm guessing that the book was right. I share that information because you might want to try out the pronunciation at Pho 75, a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant in the Italian Market area. Should you not, however, be aware that Pho 75 is conveniently subtitled Saigon Palace.

"What a perfect soup day," a young woman told her friend as they shook rain from their umbrellas and placed them in a corner by the vestibule of Van's Garden on North 11th Street. A perfect day indeed, especially when you have so many wonderful soups to choose from at this small Vietnamese restaurant. Van's Garden has been around for about three years. It's a basic-looking place that offers little in the way of interesting decor. It looks much the way the old Chinatown eateries used to look - a deep rectangle filled with tables.

A curious gust of chestnut soups has settled in this season, without apparent rhyme or, well, who needs a reason, overstaying the normal autumn run. No shared motive emerges. And sometimes stuff just happens - like the sudden uptick in local, house-made hot dogs and the remakes of, yes, scrapple (with crab, with just vegetables, and with foie gras, or partly foie gras.) At Meme, the corner spot at 22d and Spruce Streets, chef David Katz made a batch of his abidingly simple puree (just chestnuts, onion, chicken stock, and a dab of crème fraîche)

MIRANDA BARTHMUS was munching on some brunch at Sabrina's Cafe in the Italian Market last spring when something unexpected arrived at her table: a side of serendipity. Barthmus and some colleagues from the Bethesda Project, a nonprofit agency on South Street near 16th that helps feed and shelter area homeless folks, had attracted the attention of Robert DeAbreu, the owner of Sabrina's. "We were celebrating, because we had just had our best fundraiser," said Barthmus, Bethesda's director of development.

On hearing that his daughter had just been named CEO of Campbell Soup Co., Denise Morrison's father congratulated her and then asked: "What's your next goal?" For many of us, being named the head of a Fortune 500 company would be the culmination of a long, hard climb, validation of our success. But that's not how Morrison, 59, and her three sisters were raised in the coastal community of Elberon, N.J. Dinner conversation with Dennis Sullivan, an AT&T executive as well as a father, delved into marketing plans, focus groups, and the art of negotiation, Morrison said.

Maryland's Dez Wells knocked down 9 of 13 from the field and 10 of 10 from the line, and the seventh-seeded Terrapins knocked No. 2 Duke out of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Greensboro, N.C. Wells scored a career-high 30 points and Maryland (22-11) upset the Blue Devils, 83-74, on Friday night in the ACC tournament quarterfinals. Mason Plumlee had 19 points to lead the second-seeded Blue Devils (27-5), whose quest for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament took a jolt.

Makes 8 servings 1/4 cup olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 3 carrots, peeled and chopped 4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 5 thyme sprigs 1 bay leaf 2 teaspoons salt 3 cups water 1 cup broccoli florets 3 medium zucchini, cut into small dice 1 can (15.5 ounce) diced    tomatoes 2 cups kale, ribs removed,    and coarsely chopped Two cubes of chicken        bouillon, or more to taste 1 can (15.5 ounces)    cannellini beans, with    liquid Grated Parmesan cheese,    for serving 1. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.

There are a few simple rules at my friend's annual soup party and competition: Bring your own crockpot and ladle. Avoid cooking at the party, but, please, if you do need a spot on the stove, request in advance. And for heaven's sake, do not, under any circumstances, bring chili. "Chili is not soup," says host Sara Goddard. "If you want to have a chili competition, start your own party. " If it sounds like a proud tradition, that's because Feb. 16 marked the 10th anniversary of "What a Crock," held at the Bryn Mawr home of Goddard and her husband Joe Daly, with 25 guests and 6 soup entries.

If it hasn't already happened to you, get ready. Even five minutes of casual news watching will alert you: This is the worst cold and flu season in recent memory. The sneezing that punctuates an unusually thick fatigue was my first clue that I was among the ill. Actually, my already-infected husband, sick a full week before I was, foretold the cold. Before I succumbed to the worst of it, something had to be done. I needed to make a lot of chicken soup for some serious symptom relief.

Few things are more promising than a piping-hot bowl of French onion soup placed before you on a brisk day, its fragrant liquid beneath a toasted raft topped with golden cheese that will soon be stringing from your mouth. How frustrating, then, to discover something skimpy, with bready mush and pale onions, devoid of flavor. Having been subjected to three such disappointing examples at restaurants in the fall, I decided to work through what it takes to make a soul-satisfying version.

Angkor is so hidden, tucked inside the arcade of an obscure strip mall on a hard-to-find stretch of Whitaker Avenue in the Lawncrest section of the Northeast, that it risks being unnoticed by the wider world. But fans of Cambodian fare will find it worth the journey for the labor-intensive home-style specialties offered by Lee Choing and his co-owner chef, Kimhuor Tieng, from classic sour soups to fish paste-scented ground pork with crudité. My favorite was the unusually delicate num pa-chok, an intriguing bowl of vermicelli noodles in coconut broth turned vivid turmeric yellow with Tieng's fresh curry, infused with lemongrass, kaffir lime, and aromatic rhizome root, then scattered with crumbles of poached whole tilapia, picked and mashed in a mortar and pestle.

"This takes away that frantic Black Friday anxiety. " While there's a sport to it, life's a little too short. " - Lawrence Fong, co-founder of BuyVia, an app that sends people price alerts and promotions.   "Obviously, we'll all be waiting for the fiscal cliff negotiations when Congress comes back next week. " - James Dunigan, PNC Wealth Management, Philadelphia, on a quiet market day on Black Friday. "We expect online spending to increase about 15 percent year over year, far outpacing the growth in overall holiday sales.

Campbell Soup Co.'s first-quarter revenue rose 8 percent, mostly because of new products in its portfolio through the recent acquisition of Bolthouse Farms of California. But profits declined on transaction and restructuring charges. The sales of V8 juice declined but important U.S. soups climbed 2 percent. The company told investors that supermarket chains and retail stores seemed to stock inventory of Campbell ready-to-serve soup and broth products early for Thanksgiving so that the current quarter's profit growth may lag full-year projections.