Vegetable Soup

Some of the most pleasant restaurants in Baltimore are th ones located in once-grand rowhouses. The owners have incorporated the beautiful moldings, elegant appointments and stately mantels of the original homes into their restaurants' dining rooms. I'm thinking of places like the Brass Elephant and the Orchid and, on a slightly smaller scale, Tree's.xTC What a pretty dining room Tree's has, with its high ceilings, ornate chandelier, fine woodwork, soft gray walls and flowery tablecloths covered with glass.

It began as a modest undertaking, just making a pot of vegetable soup. It grew into a Sunday project with frenzied chopping of zucchini, enthusiastic peeling of tomatoes and multiple attempts to get the entire family involved in the process.The result was too much of a good soup.My zeal got the best of me. I ended up with enough of the vegetable soup with basil, tomato and garlic to give a cup of the stuff to every man, woman and child who can say "soupe au pistou" without giggling.I doubt that many kids would ask for this soup.

Animals grow thick coats to protect them against the winter cold. I pry open cans of soup. My mainstays are vegetable and chicken noodle. But the other night I broke the routine, and heated up a can of conch chowder.Selecting a can of vegetable soup is not a simple business. It seems that years ago there was one style of canned vegetable soup, the kind with the letters of the alphabet floating in it. Now there seem to be more types of vegetable soup than there are ways to say "cloudy and cold."

An Annapolis woman and her 15-year-old daughter are suing the Campbell Soup Company, claiming they found a worm in their vegetable soup.Diana Elliott Early and her daughter, Jessica, were eating Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable Soup on Sept. 27, 1989, when the child noticed what appeared to be an insect or a rodent in her bowl, according to the suit. The substance was identified as a worm known as a "European corn borer," according to the complaint, filed Wednesday in countyCircuit Court.After seeing the worm, the mother and daughter "were overcome with hysteria, became nauseous and vomited for approximately two hours,"the suit states.

This nice little Charles Village eatery seems to change its image as often as Madonna.The last time I stepped inside its doors, it was a peach-colored bower with lattice-enclosed booths, twinkling white lights and swoony Sinatra ballads. But get a load of it now: those red booths, that black and white tile, the soda fountain, the bubbling Wurlitzer. And check out the menu, with its blue-plate specials and banana splits. Like so many other new restaurants around town, Tamber's ("Nifty Fifties Dining")

I know I need a respite from work when I find myself moving a 60-watt bulb back and forth between a bedside lamp and one on the dressing table -- as I've been doing for several weeks now. Also, a family of wasps has been trying to take over the house for the winter, which reminds me that the windows -- the wasps' port of entry -- need to be recaulked. There's more, but the point is, when I'm living on the edge like this, I think of the restorative powers of soup.What luxury to put a few ingredients in a pot and let a wonderful aroma fill the house while I read a book.

India GrillWhere: 1017 S. Charles St.AHours: Lunch buffet daily, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. daily.Credit Cards: AE, MC, V.Features: Indian dishes.ll: 962-1554.Non-smoking section: No, but staff will try to accommodate non-smokers' needs. Indian food fans might be tempted to sing "Send in the Clones." Not only does the India Grill's name sound suspiciously "inspired" by the Bombay Grill, but the menu prose is close enough to seem like a rip-off, not a mere spinoff.Well, it may be a copycat, but it's a copycat that knows its stuff.