Best Soups

On a cold, wintry day, there's nothing more gratifying than wrapping your mittened hands around a steaming bowl of soup. Particularly if that soup's from the Philadelphia Filly, an old-fashioned quilted-metal cart that keeps things cooking on the 16th Street Mall right at Broadway. The recipes come from Sally Rock and Dale Goin, who long ago shut their restaurant of the same name in order to take their soups and gourmet cheesesteak

sandwiches on the road. Rock believes that any casserole or down-home dish can be made into a soup, and she proves it by offering such favorites as red beans and rice, chicken cordon bleu and tuna-cheese casserole in liquid form. These concoctions are so rich and flavorful, you'd swear you were eating the real thing. And flu sufferers, take note: The Filly's version of chicken noodle contains curry and cayenne, which clear out the throat, and cream, which soothes it. Hurry and eat your fill now, though, because as soon as the days get as warm as these bowls, they'll disappear until next winter -- but you can get the Filly's cheesesteaks year-round.