Right now I’m in the middle of planning our Thailand trip set for this September (is this seriously real life?) and while researching a place to stay I find myself repeating in my mind “I want La Torre, I just want to stay in La Torre again.” I don’t know if a La Torre experience exists in Thailand, but I’m not going to stop researching until I find something as close to it as possible.

While planning our trip I emailed back and forth with a girl who has spent time living in Italy, and she suggested I look into staying at an agriturismo at some point during our trip. Agriturismi are working farms described really well by About.com:

Agriturismo - a combination of the words for “agriculture” and “tourism” in Italian - is a style of vacationing in farm house resorts codified into Italian law in 1985. An agriturismo vacation is suitable for the whole family and some places even be very romantic or luxurious. An Italian agriturismo will usually serve foods to guests prepared from raw materials produced on the farm or at least locally. Some will allow the guest to actually participate in the activities surrounding the farm. Despite the rural nature of the lodging, one might expect a rustic experience; yet many agriturismi (the plural form of agriturismo) feature rather luxurious accommodation as well as swimming pools.

A farm out in the middle of nowhere that would serve me homemade food grown on the property and in the surrounding area? Hello dream vacation experience, nice to meet you. Unfortunately all of the agristurismi my friend recommended were unavailable during our available dates. I spent hours and hours researching, and decided to take a chance on a tiny place in an area of Tuscany known as Bagni di Lucca called La Torre. Paolo and Laura quit their 9-5 office jobs, bought a run-down property in the middle of the Tuscan countryside, and spent years restoring the property to its present state. As if the whole quit-your-job-and-start-a-bed-and-breakfast part of the story wasn’t romantic enough, they were actually married in the small ancient chapel on the property in 2005.

As you already know from my opening paragraph, La Torre was heaven and I want every vacation experience to be an exact replica of that marvelous time from now on. I hope my pictures can do it justice in some small way.

The view from the property

The building where our room was located

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I love step-by-step cooking tutorial posts, but I tend to avoid them due to our current windowless kitchen situation (the resulting photos depress me a little bit). Because I love this soup so much though, I am willing to put up with the awful lighting and hope that you will give it a try.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Chop up about 1 lb of carrots. I use this mandoline and it makes the process go so much faster. I then use my olive-oil mister to cover the carrots with a light coat of olive oil. Sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper on top.

After an amount of time that I haven’t recorded, your carrots will look a bit shriveled and blackened on the edges like this. Take the black ones, bite off the good parts (try it, they’re kind of like carrot chips) and set the rest aside.

Chop up some onions and throw them in a big pot with some olive oil, stir until translucent and a bit browned. Add in your ginger and stir that around a bit as well.

Add a container of vegetable broth, salt, and coriander. Simmer until the carrots are tender.

Pour in a half can of coconut milk (or a whole can if you’re indulgent like me).

Blend it up (I also highly recommend getting a hand blender if you’re going to make soup a lot. Dumping boiling ingredients into a food processer/blender can be so hazardous (and means cleaning up yet another dish).

I reserved a carrot as a garnish, but I like blending them all up.

This is one of my favorite soups ever, and so easy. Roasting the carrots is extra work, but it brings out a richness that you wouldn’t get if you boiled the carrots raw.

A little behind-the-scenes glimpse into what it’s like for me to get pictures like this.

Coconut Carrot and Ginger Soup

Inspired by Eat Live Run’s Carrot and Ginger Soup

Ingredients:

1 lb carrots, peeled and sliced

2 T minced fresh ginger

1 T olive oil

1 onion (preferably sweet) chopped

3-4 cups vegetable broth

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp coriander

1 can coconut milk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spread the carrots out on a baking sheet, spray with olive oil, and put in the oven until the carrot slices on the edges start to blacken. Remove from the oven.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add the onion and saute until translucent and starting to brown. Add the ginger.

Add the roasted carrots, broth, coriander and salt and bring to a boil.

Boil until carrots are completely tender and the broth is looking opaque. Add in the coconut milk. Blend.

I did my best to marry a man like you. I’m doing my best to raise a son with those same qualities I love so much.

Happy Birthday

One of the cooking club regulars had a fabulous idea… we’re going to do a Favorite Snacks night! Think of this as a collaborative night where we talk about some of our favorite snacks. These are snacks that are nutritious and keep us going throughout the day. Come and show us how to make one of your favorite snacks.

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I found myself thinking about mayonnaise. Which is weird, because for the past few years, we’ve all but given up on mayonnaise. I try to avoid oils like canola or vegetable, and mayonnaise is almost always made with them. It hasn’t really been that big of a deal since we gave up lunch meat, and most of our previous mayonnaise consumption came via ham or turkey sandwiches.

I know that they make all sorts of alternative mayonnaise-like products, like vegenaise, or mayonnaise made mostly/fully with olive oil, but I only like one kind of mayo. Period.

Source

If it isn’t Hellmann’s*, I don’t want it anywhere near my plate. I’d rather eat a dry hot dog any day (actually I don’t eat hot dogs either so that’s kind of a non-issue) than slather some of that disgusting slop called Miracle Whip on my bun.

While I was surfing the chasm between sleep and awake on said night, I had a thought. I probably only like Hellmann’s because that is what my mom liked and bought, and I associate that taste with how all mayo should taste. The part of me obsessed with localganic whole foods, bucking-the-industrial-food-revolution, Occupy Big Food, etc wants to switch to mayonnaise made with oils I find more agreeable, but I can’t force myself to make the sacrifice. Sometimes a girl just wants a tuna sandwich with her childhood favorite mayo, you know?

Which means I’m probably dooming my own children to loving the soybean oil infused flavor that Hellmann’s provides. I know I could make my own (and I’m sure I will at some point just to see what it’s like) but the short storage time is really an issue. I like buying my big ol’ Costco sized tub of mayo and digging in month after month with no worries.

So, are you willing to help me figure out if my theory is correct. Do you consider one type of store bought mayonnaise to be best? Is it the same mayonnaise that your parents raised you on?

*Also known as Best Foods.