This past weekend was the Vegan festival in Milan. Maybe for americans it’s not a surprise to hear of these things, but for us here in italy, it’s a big deal…I guess it’s the third year they do it but I heard of it for the first time just this year. I sent a request to be a volunteer in the kitchen. It was hard work, I was there all saturday till dinner service. There were quite a lot volunteers I thought, and the chef that was instructing us was calm and organized. I passed three hours making these veggie burgers with other three girls…we made 676 burgers. It was a great experience especially because it was so nice to talk to the people you were working with and share stories to them, all of us there for the same reason…love for animals.
After finishing my turn, I had dinner there at the restaurant (they offered either a plate of vegan raw food or cooked food, each one with about 5 different elements on the plate). In the enclosed area next to the restaurant and food part were all of the associations and organizations with their own tables giving out information or selling food products and trying to get signatures for several petitions. It was very sad to walk along them and see all these images of tortured animals. we signed up in particular to the anti-vivisection main organization in Italy. Later, they had a big screening of the documentary “Cowspiracy”, which everyone on this earth should see (it mostly talks about the terrible effect of meat/cattle farming on the environment).
It was a great experience, and can’t wait to help out next year too.

Back to the country the following day, I woke up feeling a bit sicky so decided to make something with ginger turmeric etc.. Also, I had put to soak some black chickpeas the night before (i Love them, they’re much more crunchy than regular chickpeas)…so what about a Carrot-ginger-turmeric soup with some roasted black chickpeas?

• For the carrot soup:

1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 thumb-piece ginger, minced
1 tbls olive oil
6/7 carrots, peeled and chopped roughly
vegetable broth

• For the chickpeas:

1 cup cooked black chickpeas
1 tbls coconut oil
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp curry powder
corse salt and red pepper flakes

Sautèe the onion with the garlic, turmeric powder, ginger and olive oil. after 5 minutes add the carrots and vegetable broth just about to cover the carrots and let cook for 20 minutes. turn the heat off and purèe the soup until you have a smooth texture.
In a pan warm up the chickpeas with the coconut oil, cumin and curry powder, corse salt and red pepper flakes for 5/10 minutes on high heat. (otherwise mix everything and spread on a baking sheet and roast in the oven).

Serve on the carrot soup with some chickpeas on top and some fresh parsley chopped finely. It’s delicious!