Calamari & Artichoke Soup with Garlic Crostini

Artichoke & Squid SoupMany of my favorite dishes are the ones that have the ability to transport.  You inhale, take a bite, and suddenly you’re not sitting at your kitchen table anymore, you’re off exploring the world or being whisked back a couple of decades and remembering a dinner you ate half a lifetime ago.

This soup is one of those dishes; it’s a soup that transports.  As soon as it started to simmer, I breathed in, and thought, “ahhh…Italy”.  While it’s not a replica of any dish I’ve eaten on Italian soil, the smell of squid and artichokes bubbling away in white wine and too much/just the right amount of olive oil smelled so unmistakably Italian.  Immediately, I was flung from my dreary Minnesota kitchen, into the warm Mediterranean sun.  

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