"tomato soup" news and stories

• What is Country Captain?
• A new store in Somerville sells only cupcakes! (And here's more about cupcakes from the Globe's Dishing blog.)
• An interview with cookbook editor Judith Jones.
• A look at Adam Roberts' (The Amateur Gourmet) virtual book tour.
• The secrets to a great bundt cake.
• Mapping the genome of the pinot noir grape.
• This week's recipes: Evan's Lama Curry, Martha's Paprikash, Greek Salad, Tomato Soup, and Spiced and Glazed Apple Cake.

Flipping through my Campbell's Soup cookbook this afternoon, I stumbled across one of those recipes that makes you stop and marvel at the creativity of the human brain. Because it takes a certain kind of person to think, "Gee, I think that tomato soup would be the perfect addition to a chiffon cake!" According to the blurb just above the recipe the tomato soup gives the cake "a wonder-what-it-is flavor and rosy color." I'm sure it does. I'd love to hear if anyone has ever made a tomato soup cake, as I'm dying to know how it tastes.

Recipe after the jump.

My Slashfood friends, I am a sadist. Or is it masochist? I never knew the difference between the two.

Either way, for some reason known only to, well, to no one, I decided to do the most punishing thing ever on a hot summer day: turn on the oven. I know, I must be crazy. The inexplicable thing is, however, that I turned it on to roast something that doesn't need to be roasted. If I needed to make a roasted garlic puree, I could justify it. If I felt like roasting a lemon herb chicken for Sunday supper, it would make sense.

My friends, I roasted tomatoes. Tomatoes! At this point in the season, there is absolutely no need to roast produce that is practically dripping with fresh flavor right off the vine!

However, I couldn't resist after I came across a recipe for Roasted Tomato Soup while flipping lazily through Marcus Wareing's Cook the Perfect cookbook.

Despite the fact that is summer, and the temperatures are going to climb back into the 90's by the middle of the week (at least here in Philadelphia), I have soup on the brain. Since I'm also obsessed with the summer crop of Jersey tomatoes that are rolling into the stores and farmers' markets around here, I thought I would share my very favorite Roasted Tomato Basil soup recipe.

Sadly, I have absolutely no claim on this one, it belongs to the Barefoot Contessa. I tend to have difficulties with many of her recipes (I can't handle the idea of putting a large pat of butter on the inside of a hamburger patty), but this one is foolproof and bowl-lickingly good.

I was watching Ham on the Street a few nights ago (great show - I had never watched it before but it's quite entertaining), and the episode focused on pizza. He visited pizza shops, had a taste test to see if people on the street liked his toppings of carmelized onions and gorgonzola more than pepperoni, and made some pizza on pita bread that I have to try.

But the recipe on the show that I need to try right now is the Pepperoni Pizza Soup. What a great concept, pizza, but in a bowl! At first I thought it would be just some odd approximation of pizza, but this recipe actually sounds doable: