Tomato Soup

Serves 4 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, chopped 6 tomatoes, peeled and chopped 4 cups chicken stock Salt and pepper, to taste Handful fresh basil leaves 1. In a soup...

VEGGIE GALAXY 450 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-497-1513. All major cards. Wheelchair accessible. Prices Breakfast $4.50-$9.25. Lunch $5.75-$9.95. Dinner $8.95-$11.95. Dessert $2-$7.50. Hours Daily 7 a.m.- 3 p.m., 5-10 p.m. Liquor Wine and beer. May we suggest Open-faced seitan sandwich, baked mac, sweet potato mash, grilled cheese sandwich, cream of tomato soup, Kendall Square burger, Boston cream pie. VEGGIE GALAXY 450 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-497-1513.

VEGGIE GALAXY 450 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-497-1513. All major cards. Wheelchair accessible. Prices Breakfast $4.50-$9.25. Lunch $5.75-$9.95. Dinner $8.95-$11.95. Dessert $2-$7.50. Hours Daily 7 a.m.- 3 p.m., 5-10 p.m. Liquor Wine and beer. May we suggest Open-faced seitan sandwich, baked mac, sweet potato mash, grilled cheese sandwich, cream of tomato soup, Kendall Square burger, Boston cream pie. VEGGIE GALAXY 450 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-497-1513.

Serves 4 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, chopped 6 tomatoes, peeled and chopped 4 cups chicken stock Salt and pepper, to taste Handful fresh basil leaves 1. In a soup...

As a kid, I remember sluggishly hot days, tomato soup, and archery. I wanted to be home playing baseball with my friends. As an adult, my attitude’s changed. Even if for one night, it’s nice to get away from the clogged Expressway and live under the sky. Wildwood Family Camp, run by the Mass. Audubon Society in Rindge, N.H., offers three days of activities, meals, and that singalong spirit for roughly $200 a person.

Oh for a kitchen, a pot, a pan, a heavy wooden chopping block set alongside a thick, leaping flame. Amid the bounty of Cleveland's West Side Market, this is a visitor's lament. To be one of these locals, eyeing whole suckling pigs and smelling fresh ground horseradish. To have a home, a kitchen toward which to hoist the plastic sacks loaded with fresh bread, juicy watermelon, late-season corn on the cob. Travel has done it again, delivering a richness so tempting, yet so unattainable, so far from a pantry full of flour and sugar and salt.

It's a summer weeknight during the Democratic National Convention, and we're waiting a few minutes for a table at West on Centre, West Roxbury's first plunge into upscale dining. Downtown Boston seems deserted, and restaurateurs from Back Bay to the North End to Cambridge have been quoted in print and on television complaining about lousy business. On this particular evening, though, West on Centre is flush with customers. Families with young children sit at long tables in the bar area, eating burgers and macaroni and cheese.

Serves 4 Italian cooks make the most of stale bread. Instead of just tossing their day-old, even week-old, loaves to the birds, they whip up all manner of frugal treats: Toast the bread as bruschetta, toss it with salad vegetables for panzanella, or make the miraculous pappa al pomodoro, essentially fresh tomato sauce thickened with stale bread. The texture - a luxurious red mush - resembles a savory bread pudding (or baby food). It sounds humble, but this dish is serious alchemy.

A great and stately unfolding occurs in the "Ocean Park" paintings of Richard Diebenkorn, among which can be counted some of the most beautiful works of art created in America, or anywhere else, since the Second World War. To stand before these austere but drenchingly beautiful canvases is as close as art gets to the feeling of taking refuge on a cold day under a warm shower. The larger paintings, in particular, impose a physical, almost drug-dragged restraint against removing oneself from their ambit.

As a kid, I remember sluggishly hot days, tomato soup, and archery. I wanted to be home playing baseball with my friends. As an adult, my attitude’s changed. Even if for one night, it’s nice to get away from the clogged Expressway and live under the sky. Wildwood Family Camp, run by the Mass. Audubon Society in Rindge, N.H., offers three days of activities, meals, and that singalong spirit for roughly $200 a person.

Serves 4 Italian cooks make the most of stale bread. Instead of just tossing their day-old, even week-old, loaves to the birds, they whip up all manner of frugal treats: Toast the bread as bruschetta, toss it with salad vegetables for panzanella, or make the miraculous pappa al pomodoro, essentially fresh tomato sauce thickened with stale bread. The texture - a luxurious red mush - resembles a savory bread pudding (or baby food). It sounds humble, but this dish is serious alchemy.

It's a summer weeknight during the Democratic National Convention, and we're waiting a few minutes for a table at West on Centre, West Roxbury's first plunge into upscale dining. Downtown Boston seems deserted, and restaurateurs from Back Bay to the North End to Cambridge have been quoted in print and on television complaining about lousy business. On this particular evening, though, West on Centre is flush with customers. Families with young children sit at long tables in the bar area, eating burgers and macaroni and cheese.

Oh for a kitchen, a pot, a pan, a heavy wooden chopping block set alongside a thick, leaping flame. Amid the bounty of Cleveland's West Side Market, this is a visitor's lament. To be one of these locals, eyeing whole suckling pigs and smelling fresh ground horseradish. To have a home, a kitchen toward which to hoist the plastic sacks loaded with fresh bread, juicy watermelon, late-season corn on the cob. Travel has done it again, delivering a richness so tempting, yet so unattainable, so far from a pantry full of flour and sugar and salt.