Casa Robino

A few weeks before ever coming to Istanbul, I got a random e-mail from Mert there, who told me he had seen me dancing in Lily's dumpster-dive documentary, Skipping Waste.

Fast-forward: Last night, the two of us, now living across the street from each other, decided to cook a dumpster-doven dinner together and invite a few of our traveling friends over to share with us. We prepared a feast worthy of Turkish gods and gluttons: red lentil & paprika çorba, fresh herb & tomato salad, farfalle with sautéed zucchini, aubergine, mushroom, & pomodori sauce, and the only non-vegan (but freegan) menu item: savory fresh cucumber salad with tahini, mint, black pepper, and freegan yogurt (past the expiration date but unopened and fine for consumption). We invited a handful of traveling friends over to share with us, but for one reason or another, they all declined, leaving us with a romantic two-person table setting. Later in the night, Anick-Marie came with her new Turkish boyfriend, and the romantic two-person table-setting was re-installed for their dining pleasure.

sautéed vegetables, farfalle, cucumber salad

red lentil çorba

fresh herb salad

Nearly all of it was made possible by a very small catch from a grocery store nearby, who left a cardboard box of aging veggies outside on the curb on Wednesday evening. Mert and I have been playfully observing how the green markets in our neighborhood operate: as in, what gets discarded and when. At the moment, it seems random and spontaneous, and we just happen to be lucky enough to find stuff on the sidewalk sometimes that no one else is courageous (or audacious) enough to collect. Our hands, noses, tongues, and kitchens are rejoicing for these little freegan discoveries, and we await the future of organized dumpster diving in Istanbul, to re-create fantastic Thursday night dinners here.

(the chefs, post-feast)