When things come together well, Christmas provides a good end-of-year hiatus, a reprieve for a day, or for a day and an eve (and this year, a quiet eve eve as well) from outside worries, and from both outdoor and indoor inclemencies.

Although outside temperatures here have stayed below freezing for an extraordinarily long time, the kitchen here has stayed superheated and wonderfully fragrant. The best dish we've made for our Christmas Eve gathering of the clan is the chicken soup described below. The recipe came to me from a local friend. She calls it tortilla soup, even though the recipe calls for taco chips, not tortillas. Although heartier souls might wish to add cumin, chili powder or jalape�o, this is a moderately spicy chicken soup that even someone with congested sinuses can appreciate. (You can take the boy out of eighth grade, but...)

Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:
• 3-4 chicken breasts
• chicken bouillon
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 large can tomatoes
• 1 lb bag parboiled white rice
• 1 large white onion (better make it two)
• 1 can white hominey
• 1 cup picante sauce
• 1 teaspoon Tabasco (maybe two, maybe more)
• 1 package fajita seasoning mix
• 1 lime (juiced)
• shredded cheese
• taco chips
• 2 bottles of beer (to be taken internally)

Directions

Remove the skin (if any) from the chicken and poach the breasts by bringing them to a boil in 3 quarts of water. Boil for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off after the pot has boiled for 10 minutes, but leave the pot on the burner for another 40 minutes (50 minutes total).

While the chicken cooks, chop the peppers and onions, and consider the wisdom of whining about the fact that the Cary Grant version of The Bishop's Wife is appearing on the small screen in the kitchen for the gazillionth time this week.

Remember that she might threaten to up the ante with It's a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, or White Christmas, so just shut up, remove the chicken from the bones (if any), pull apart or cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, and open a beer.

Saut� the green pepper, red pepper and onions in a little olive oil until they are tender. Heck, even if you're not fixing this dish, saut� some green and red peppers with an onion just because the combination smells so good.

Return the cut chicken pieces to the stock and add the saut�ed peppers and onions.

Add the seasoning, the bouillon, the bay leaf, undrained tomatoes, undrained hominey, lime juice, picante sauce and Tabasco.

Let the pot simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Ah, the rice. If you're preparing the soup well in advance of its serving time, or if you're preparing the soup with a view toward leftovers, and if you don't mind turning your creation into a glutinous glob, then by all means, add the rice now. Go ahead. I guess we could call it tortilla jambalaya then, eh? But sensible folks will prepare the rice separately and either serve the soup over the rice or add the rice to the soup shortly before serving.

Set aside the second beer for New Years, add the rice when you're told to, and remember that Walter Mitty was � nay, is � a survivor.

Serve the soup with shredded cheese and taco chips on top.

Now, maybe posting this recipe as a journal entry is a really shabby way to pad my pitiful production in these pages this month, but this soup is a really delicious one that I'll make again, and this (as I've said before) is my refrigerator door.

Reading: Alternating between Sobel's Longitude and Durrell's White Eagles over Serbia as the mood moves me.

Viewing: Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and The Muppet Christmas Carol.