Soup

This warming and satisfying winter soup is a delicious starter, and the vegetables add color and sweetness.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Editors' note: The original recipe calls for Chinese wheat noodles, but we also like this soup made with somen (Japanese thin wheat noodles) or soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles).

Jennifer Martin of Portland, Oregon, writes: "I am not formally trained in cooking but grew up working in food service, from chopping vegetables at food festivals to catering parties for a little extra income. Today I own Epicure Custom Cooking, a gourmet takeout shop and catering company with a few tables for dining. Our specials change weekly and are geared toward what I like to cook and eat. I simply love the business, even with my 12-hour days."

Miso soup — a fermented-soybean broth — is not difficult to make at home. Freeze the ginger and thaw it before squeezing; that way, extracting the juice will be easy. Chilled sake goes well with the meal.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Here's a rustic dish that is typical of Naples.

During June through September, when the garden was most productive, Miss O'Keeffe would often walk with me to pick the vegetables she wanted for supper. She would consider what was ripe and what flavors would be pleasing,then supper would be served near six o'clock. Meals were generally prepared according to the following preferred schedule: breakfast at 7 a.m., the noon meal at 12 o'clock, and supper at 6 p.m. This schedule is one example of the patterns that suited the artist in her nineties.

This simple soup, known as zuppa Sarda, is eaten year-round all over Sardinia.

Elderflowers, with their subtle, honeyed sweetness, are often paired with gooseberries in English cookery. In this particular recipe pink gooseberries are best; the green ones are too tart.

Remove the kernels from the cobs by holding each ear of corn upright on a flat surface and running a chef's knife along the cob and cutting downward, as close to the cob as possible.