The meal-in-a-bowl brews at the Daily Soup, a Manhattan food chain, excite customer devotion. Now Leslie Kaul, the stores' executive chef, along with the owners, offer The Daily Soup Cookbook, a collection of 200 favorite recipes for soups, stews, and stocks. These straightforward formulas, drawn from a globe-spanning repertoire, will please cooks of all kinds, from beginners to the accomplished.

Organized by ingredients such as vegetables, beans, grains, and fruit, the recipes include old favorites like French Onion and Chicken Matzoh Ball soups, as well as less familiar brews such as Jamaican Pumpkin soup, Shrimp and Scallop Seviche, and Poblano Corn Chowder. In addition to a chapter devoted to chilis---Braised Pork Chili with Black Beans and Corn is a particular winner--the authors provide notes on ingredients and techniques, historical asides, and a series of tongue-in-cheek sidebars, offering, for example, the Periodic Table of Soups and Baby Names for the New Millennium ("Art E. Choke" is one). If these digressions aren't always apt, there are always the soups, with several pièce de résistance examples--Peking Duck; Lamb, Artichoke, and Rosemary Stew; and Saffron Mussel soup--guaranteed to please. A final section on stocks provides basic soup building-block information, and Things to Do with Leftover Soups offers next-day options, should any of the delicious bowls not be devoured instantly. --Arthur Boehm


From Library Journal
Daily Soup is a popular New York City chain that sells an ever-changing menu of main-dish soups. Close to 200 of their recipes are gathered in their cookbook, mostly organized by main ingredient (plus "Really Delicious Soups That Didn't Fit into Any Chapter"). Wild Mushroom Artichoke Soup, Poblano Corn Chowder, and Bahian Seafood Stew are just some of the wide-ranging, often unusual choices. Recommended for area libraries and other larger collections. Moosewood, the well-known vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, NY, offers a different specialAsoup, salad, and breadAevery day. In its eighth cookbook, the restaurant collective presents dozens of recipes for soups, main-dish and side salads, and accompaniments, inspired by a dazzling variety of cuisines, from Algerian Tomato Soup and Grecian Isle Stew to Thai Noodle Salad and Louisiana Black-Eyed Pea Salad. Some of the recipes are vegan, and there are seafood soups and salads for those who eat fish. For most collections. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Daily Soup, the popular New York restaurant chain, presents 200 amazing recipes for soups, stews, and stocks, drawing from cultures around the world. Photos throughout.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal