Friday's Creative Tip: Writing Soup

Today's tip is about a delicious soup that writers can easily make and only take about fifteen minutes off from their work.

The pan: I think cooking instruments should be lovely and satisfying to the cook's soul. I make this soup in a huge saute pan with a long, curving silver handle. It's so pretty you can just leave the soup in it for everybody to serve themselves.

The ingredients: Carrots cut up in round slices or those little carrot-shaped pieces you can buy in a packet. A package of fresh Swiss chard. Three or four cans of vegetable broth (stock up when it's on sale).

The recipe: Empty four cans of fragrant broth into your elegant pan. Add the carrots. Cut the stems off the Chard, wash it, and chop it into rather small pieces. Dump the veggies into the broth and heat it until the carrots are cooked the way you like them. Add some mushrooms if you like but they aren't really necessary.

Eat your delicious writers' soup. It isn't heavy, which would stifle your creativity. It is BEAUTIFUL--golden carrots, dark green Chard, light green broth. If the day is hot, cook it early and put it in the fridge because it is possibly even better cold. You will get a lot more writing done because you won't have to cook again. Just add a nice piece of vegetarian cheese and some lovely crusty whole-grain bread!