Soup

Offer crackers and some coleslaw along with the chowder. Lemon meringue pie is a perfect way to end the meal.

Round out the menu with sliced radicchio, fennel and roasted bell pepper salad; crisp flatbread; and apricot sorbet with cookies.

This recipe is from Willinger's cookbook Red, White & Greens. She was inspired by chef Fabio Picchi of the Florentine restaurant Cibréo, where creamy-yet-creamless soup is his signature first course. Picchi likes to use meat stock as the base for the soup, but Willinger thinks the flavor is nearly as rich using only water. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 1 hr

This homey soup was inspired by a recipe from Maria, the nanny for Patrick's family. She served warm corn tortillas alongside.

A splash of aquavit is the finishing touch to this practically-no-fat starter.

(MINESTRA DI CAMPAGNA) Creativity with simple ingredients is one of the themes of Sicilian cooking. There's no better example than this bean and vegetable soup, which some say evolved from food that fifteenth-century galley cooks made for mariners. Serve an island dry red wine such as Corvo with this.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The bouquet garni for this stew includes orange peel (use a vegetable peeler to make wide strips) and some of the wispy fronds from the top of the fennel bulb that goes into the soup.

Becky Johnson of Nonesuch, Kentucky, asks, "Can you request the recipe for the tomato soup with garlic croutons from Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan? It’s a delicious reminder of a lunch I had there with friends."

The delicately flavored fruit chayote is ubiquitous in the central highlands of Mexico. It varies greatly in size, ranges in color from white to dark green, and can have prickly or smooth skin. The variety most commonly available in the United States (also known as a vegetable pear or mirliton) has smooth, pale green skin that can be eaten but is sometimes removed.

Eggplant adds a nutty flavor. Open a light-bodied Valpolicella from Italy for the meal.

Clearly this is an Italian soup. Biete is Swiss chard, usually green, although I have a fondness for the drama and beefy taste of the red-stemmed kind.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

My mother-in-law remembers the kapparah tradition in Poland. Early in the morning of the day prior to Yom Kippur, a fowl was whirled about her head, while she thought about turning over a new leaf. Her father would whirl a rooster, her mother a hen, and her brothers and sisters a pullet or a cockerel. The ceremony was repeated for each child. She was always frightened by the fluttering feathers. After the whirling, her mother would race to the shohet and have the fowls ritually slaughtered to make food for the meal before the fast. All the fowls would be cooked, and any extras given to bachelor relatives or to the poor. Chicken soup would be made for the kreplakh and the boiled chicken eaten as a mild main dish. Yemenite Jews also eat chicken before the fast of Yom Kippur, but much earlier in the morning, at about 10:30. Their soup is dipped with the kubbanah bread. Note: Making a children's version of hawayij is a great introduction to Middle Eastern spices. Take the children to a spice store where they can pick out the spices themselves. Hawayij is basically a combination of cumin, coriander (omit if using fresh), curry powder, ginger, black pepper, and turmeric. Add spices according to your children's tolerance for strong and unusual flavors. You can omit them altogether if you wish.