Tuscan Chickpea Soup

It really can't get any easier than this. This soup takes about 30 minutes from start to eating. It has relatively few ingredients so the focus is on buying the best you can afford.

Tuscan Chickpea Soup
1/4 oz. pancetta, medium dice
2 Tbs. evoo
1 onion, peeled, medium dice
4 cloves garlic, peeled, rough chopped
2 celery stalks, medium dice
6 sage leaves
1 quart chicken stock
1 14oz. can diced tomatoes
1 14oz. can chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper
really good olive oil (not meant for cooking but for eating raw)

*Notes on substitution: You can substitute bacon, but pancetta is the best option. It is unsmoked, and usually of a higher quality that most supermarket bacon. The pancetta will render lots of gorgeous fat into the soup that gives it a wonderful mouth feel.
Strangely, pancetta and sage seem to be seasonal - at least in Arizona. I made this soup last night and found it impossible to locate either item at the local shops. I did use bacon (shock, horror); and found that rosemary made a good change from the sage. However, because rosemary is stronger in flavour I only used three 3 inch clippings from our plant in the backyard.

On medium heat warm the evoo (extra virgin olive oil) add the pancetta and render the fat before adding the celery, garlic, sage and onion. Allow the veg to sweat and soften for about 15 minutes. They will color a little, but I found this is a lot of food for my stockpot and the crowding lowered the temperature and let the vegetables get steamy. This is okay.
Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, and chicken stock to the soup and allow everything to heat through - about 10 minutes. Viola! (I said it was easy.) Season to taste with kosher salt and please, freshy cracked pepper.
Eat the soup with crusty bread and a good drizzle of the olive oil overtop. We also sprinkled our bowls with strips of proscuitto we had languishing in our refrigerator.