It was 18 degrees when I woke up. The daffodils are nodding, the forsythia is quaking and I don’t even want to know about the rose bush. Still, winter weather has its consolations. One of them is soup.

This morning I had a sudden craving for my dad’s vegetable soup, rich and tomatoey with potatoes and carrots and celery and peas. So I started rooting through the freezer and pantry.

First I located a frozen soup bone, then a pack of frozen stew beef, left over from when I made beef bourguignon in the crock pot a few weekends ago. There were a few old potatoes in the larder and a half-forgotten stalk of celery in the bottom crisper drawer. Onions aplenty. Even two cans of tomatoes. There was, in short, everything I needed to make soup.

… Or almost everything. As I write this post I realize what’s missing. The V-8 juice. That’s what gives the broth its richness and flavor.

Too late now.  The soup bone is simmering. And the grocery store is only minutes away.