Tomato Soup

Robin Leach, of television's"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," was there. So were actress/singer Della Reese and Marion Ross, best known as the perfect mom on TV's old "Happy Days" show. They had gathered yesterday in Minneapolis to pay homage to one of the nation's most enduring food staples - Campbell's tomato soup. The 20 billionth can is rolling off the production line this year. And Campbell Soup Co. executives decided to herald the event with the requisite fanfare.

Recently I was in a hair salon under the dryer when a friend spotted me and came over to discuss the menu for a future dinner party. Fresh tomato soup with grilled scallops, a dish I had served at a casual supper a few days before, came to mind. I also recommended a pesto tart and a salad of mixed greens in a white wine dressing. She liked these ideas and thought they would work well with a favorite dessert, chocolate brownies mounded with coffee ice cream and drizzled with warm fudge sauce.

Yo, Chefs! First, thank you for printing the Art Museum's recipe for garlic mashed potatoes (Jan. 15). They're great. I never follow a recipe, but this time I did and amazed my wife with the results. Second, my real quest: As a Navy ship's cook back in 1945, I was one member of a "watch crew" that fed 5,000 sailors in eight lines. We were specialized, so I don't know how the recipes came together. But I do know that when cream of tomato soup was on the menu, the usual soup quantity had to be more than doubled because so many people came back for seconds and thirds.

Campbell Soup has launched a line of condensed soups that contain one-third less salt than its regular soups. The sodium content of the new soups, which are called "Special Request," will fall between the levels of salt in Campbell's regular soups and in its low-sodium soups for people on salt-restricted diets. Over the years, Campbell's has been the target of protests by consumer groups who say its soups are too high in sodium. A company spokesman, David C. Hackney, said the new soups, which have been under development for 10 years, should answer those concerns.

Nibs are the grindings of roasted cacao beans before they're crushed and, through magical processes, transformed into chocolate. Occasionally you'll encounter candy that incorporates them, but it's invariably bitter and astringent. Not so with this Theo nib brittle from organic and fair-traded beans. Tamed in buttery brittle, wrapped in winey, rich dark chocolate, they become snap-crackling accents - chocolate's soul whispering from the deep. - Rick Nichols Tomato soup redux I'll admit, I still occasionally regress to a nostalgic childhood meal of Campbell's tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich is one of comfort food's all-star collaborations. But which of the two do you especially covet? The South Philly Tap Room cleverly caters to both preferences, with a full-sized sandwich and a cup of soup for traditionalists, or a bowl of soup topped with a short stack of crouton-like mini grilled cheeses. Either way brings chef Scott Schroeder's soulful soup, deliberately Campbell's-esque in style, but deepened in flavor (true to beer bar form)

I LOVE a luscious bowl of soup during the fall and winter months. Maybe you do, too. But beware of soups in restaurants and on grocery shelves, because most commercially prepared soups have huge amounts of sodium. Some pack a wallop of fat as well. As much as I know about nutrition, I fell for this trap on the first sort of chilly day this month. I hadn't brought my lunch to work like I normally do and, since it was rainy and cold, I decided to hit a nearby Cosi restaurant. I thought that would be a smart choice - a place where I could get a nice, nutritious bowl of soup accompanied by their delicious hot bread.

TOMATO SOUP and a grilled cheese sandwich make a popular meal, but its calorie count and fat content could surprise you. OliveGarden.com's recipe for cream of tomato and basil soup contains 482 calories and 34 fat grams per cup, but I slim it down by using a mixture of tomato puree, mashed potato and half-and-half in place of two cups of heavy cream. I also substitute chicken broth for white wine. My alterations to this soup cut the calories by 74 percent and slash the fat by 80 percent.

Never much for tradition, I wanted to see what would happen if I took a backward approach to a classic Italian soup. Bread and tomato soup - known as pappa al pomodoro - is a wonderful way of using up stale bread and overripe tomatoes. It produces a richly savory soup that is thick and satisfying enough to make a meal of. It typically is made by sauteing onions and garlic, then adding tomatoes and cooking. Just before serving, cubes of stale bread, chopped fresh basil, and a bit of chicken broth are stirred in. My approach reversed the order, panfrying the cubes of bread in olive oil until crisp, then adding the tomatoes.

Purists insist that the only way to glorify a tomato is to eat it right off the vine, biting through its sun-warmed flesh like an apple. Apparently, these sticklers for perfection have never had Burt's tomato soup. Our good friend Burt is completely oblivious to what a wonderful cook he is, or how much we look forward to the days when he gathers up all the spotted, bruised and gushing tomatoes from all of our gardens and all the farm stands in a 20-mile radius, and throws them together with a mess of onions and a bunch of basil, to gurgle and sputter and grow into what we have come to love as tomato soup.

You've tried to be faithful. In January, you wrote a check to the farm that runs your CSA, dreaming of ripe tomatoes come July. You've exhausted the supply of corn and green beans blanched and frozen last summer. You've even tried to embrace the curly kale and cabbage at the few year-round farmer's markets. But only so much can be expected of even the most devoted locavore, especially this time of year. By March, those hard tomatoes, watery strawberries, and pesticide-coated grapes start looking pretty good.

Never much for tradition, I wanted to see what would happen if I took a backward approach to a classic Italian soup. Bread and tomato soup - known as pappa al pomodoro - is a wonderful way of using up stale bread and overripe tomatoes. It produces a richly savory soup that is thick and satisfying enough to make a meal of. It typically is made by sauteing onions and garlic, then adding tomatoes and cooking. Just before serving, cubes of stale bread, chopped fresh basil, and a bit of chicken broth are stirred in. My approach reversed the order, panfrying the cubes of bread in olive oil until crisp, then adding the tomatoes.

If you were clomping up tiny Camac Street Saturday night, you may have wondered who were those well-mustachioed men, smoking cigars outside the Franklin Inn Club. They'd just been celebrating the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia - to many, a forgotten little episode that involved the Mapuche Indians of Chile and Argentina and an intrepid French lawyer who became their ruler until he was declared insane. Chilean whites and Argentine reds were promised in addition to toasts and commemorative speeches, and so I accepted the invitation of the Rev. Daniel Morrison, who in 1995 cofounded the North American Araucanian Royalist Society.

SO NOW the terrorists win if a Canadian Muslim can buy a can of tomato soup. Conservative bloggers are calling for a boycott of Camden-based Campbell Soup Co. because it now produces (in Canada, not here) 15 varieties of soup that have been certified halal - that is, conforming with Muslim dietary laws. It's yet another alarming development in the so- far-successful political strategy of exploiting ignorance and fear of Islam. It joins last summer's roiling controversy over a proposed Islamic cultural center a few New York blocks from Ground Zero and the crazy Florida minister's threat to publicly burn a Quran.

On this hot summer morning in suburban Collegeville, the Fraser children bounce out of bed and race downstairs. They're not running for the TV - they don't have one. Instead, 10-year-old twins Eliza and Carolina and their brother, Perry, 6, head for the barn, where the hens are cooing and a baby rooster practices his wake-up call. They're already old hands at egg-hunting. "I found one!" Perry shrieks. In no time at all, he and his sisters collect five of these sublimely fresh eggs, soon to be scrambled into a delicious pile for breakfast.

As an associate dean at the Culinary Institute of America, Tom Griffiths ate well: pad thai, trout almondine, oxtail. Since he became head chef at Campbell Soup Co. in February, his tastes are changing. "I'm craving egg salad sandwiches or tapioca or soup," he said. Griffiths, one of 61 master chefs certified by the American Culinary Federation, is leading Campbell's new Culinary and Baking Institute. The institute is aimed at elevating "the culinary heritage" of a company that made its name with condensed soup, said Julie Simonson, vice president of research and development.

As an associate dean at the Culinary Institute of America, Tom Griffiths ate well: pad thai, trout almondine, oxtail. Since he became head chef at Campbell Soup Co. in February, his tastes are changing. "I'm craving egg salad sandwiches or tapioca or soup," he said. Griffiths, one of 61 master chefs certified by the American Culinary Federation, is leading Campbell's new Culinary and Baking Institute. The institute is aimed at elevating "the culinary heritage" of a company that made its name with condensed soup, said Julie Simonson, vice president of research and development.

Tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich is one of comfort food's all-star collaborations. But which of the two do you especially covet? The South Philly Tap Room cleverly caters to both preferences, with a full-sized sandwich and a cup of soup for traditionalists, or a bowl of soup topped with a short stack of crouton-like mini grilled cheeses. Either way brings chef Scott Schroeder's soulful soup, deliberately Campbell's-esque in style, but deepened in flavor (true to beer bar form)

TOMATO SOUP and a grilled cheese sandwich make a popular meal, but its calorie count and fat content could surprise you. OliveGarden.com's recipe for cream of tomato and basil soup contains 482 calories and 34 fat grams per cup, but I slim it down by using a mixture of tomato puree, mashed potato and half-and-half in place of two cups of heavy cream. I also substitute chicken broth for white wine. My alterations to this soup cut the calories by 74 percent and slash the fat by 80 percent.

Nibs are the grindings of roasted cacao beans before they're crushed and, through magical processes, transformed into chocolate. Occasionally you'll encounter candy that incorporates them, but it's invariably bitter and astringent. Not so with this Theo nib brittle from organic and fair-traded beans. Tamed in buttery brittle, wrapped in winey, rich dark chocolate, they become snap-crackling accents - chocolate's soul whispering from the deep. - Rick Nichols Tomato soup redux I'll admit, I still occasionally regress to a nostalgic childhood meal of Campbell's tomato soup and grilled cheese.