​Thursday, January 25, 8 p.m.

It appeared out of nowhere, out of season, a phantom Mister Softee truck with a couple of guys piloting it who might have been in their eighties. They were stopped among the projects in Chelsea just west of Ninth Avenue on West 17th Street, strange gypsy music blaring from the loudspeakers. A guy was there buying cones for his kids -- three, covered with rainbow sprinkles -- that were already slouching in the cardboard carrying contraption.

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​Could be the next Chucky ...

Chantal Martineau

Bone-in this.

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'Tis soup season, and there is no shortage of good brothy bowls to warm you in this town. The growing number of great ramen joints comes to mind. But when it comes to the kind of wet cold that gets in your bones, like the kind that soaked through so many socks yesterday, nothing beats a bowl of ox bone soup.

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The weather ugliness has us not only looking to hot boozy drinks to stay warm but also to that more prudent source of culinary warmth: soup. Today, I found warmth and happiness in the butternut squash soup from Brooklyn's General Greene.

At $7, the soup's pricier than most of their breakfast/lunch sandwich offerings, which start at just $3, but it was pretty worth it on such a beautiful day. Hell, if you shaved a dollar or two off, I'd say it classifies as one of our "Worth Every Penny" items.

It's nice to be able to get a soup of this caliber in a casual setting; during the week, the General Greene operates as an order-at-the counter Wifi cafe until the dinner hour. Despite the daily laptop crowd, the soup isn't ladled from some sketchy, gunky warmer and slapped into a bowl with a side of stale bread. The just-creamy-enough butternut squash puree comes topped with a spiced creme fraiche that adds a nice cinnamon touch, atop that there are toasted pumpkin seeds, and then some julienned red apples that give  great color. Nice enough price, nice presentation, nice taste, great warmth.