Casa Robino

We've discovered some new dumpsters near to the casa and haven't stopped eating. Some recent finds include: strawberries, lots and lots of parsely, a sink full of tomatoes, fenel, leeks, apricots, spinach, avocados, kiwi, chillies, carrots, potatoes.....not to mention we've been drowning in croissants, pain au chocolate, almond croissants and various other pastries. We even found a lot of beans for kitten to play with.

Perogies, hummus, tabouli, guacamole, kiwi jam, roasted vegetables, pasta madre flat bread....if any one is hungry, please come over and help us eat.

So, yesterday I made my first loaf of bread, using our wonderful pasta madre, but it did not come out as good as I hoped. The bread appeared to have not risen enough, and came out very dense. Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions?

Coucou Casa!

I made a little video of that day when I made a pasta madre installation at my school. I'm a newbie with uploading videos and my internet connexion is a bit moody so I'm not sure it's actually working. Could anyone check on their computer and let me know?

Thanks,
Sarah

Robin had left for Berlin. Twelve of us had taken over the house for the week. As I sat around the dinner table, I looked around at all the new faces. Questions were not answered, inside jokes were told, Robins humourless sense of humour kept alive. The kitchen was a mess, food everywhere, flour everywhere. 11 pm, time to eat, the table was set and then unset. Food was passed around and then back around in complete confusion, wine was poured. Out came the banana bread and pastamadre only to disapear just as quickly.

I got some pasta madre from Robin in Vicenza. It has now spent a week in my pannier, without refrigeration, in a bath of olive oil in a jar, several times. I revived it in Casale, I revived it in Lyon, and I revived it in Barcelona. It seems as long as it stays wet it can live! It is always a difficult time, waiting to see if it will grow, but it always does! Hooray!
I love making bread, I even love having bread dough mixed with the other dirt on my clothing.
I love feeding people fresh home-made bread, it's one of the best gifts in the world.

Through some e-mail conversations I learned that there is yet no pasta madre in the house. This is a sad thing, especially since it is not so hard to keep it alive. But I also understand myself better than before how to do this.

We used to keep it relatively liquid, and we tried to refresh it every other day. This is not necessary. Having traveled with pastamadre from the house for 7 weeks now, I discovered many new things.

As soon as the traveling Pasta Madre came to Italy, several miracles happened. The process of levitare/ rising is amazing, and the taste is as never before. Would it be because it is closer to where it originated from, or maybe because it is now mixed with his brother and sister bacterias that were left in Berlin just before they arrived in Amsterdam? Or because Charlie and I both were playing with the dough? Who knows... But tomato bread with tomatoes grown from the garden is definitely the best.

Someone baked it and it's in the fridge waiting for Kasper to dare try it. It is yellow, like the outside wax of a cheese.
Hopefully Kasper has insurance.

They thaught us how to make bread, and just when we were ready to do our own pasta madre tripping performance live with an audience, they had to leave again, just before the real fun was starting. "Coitus interruptus" they called it.

We were at Damoclash, an Amsterdam based free culture festival (with pizza's for 7 euro) and we were about to give away 15 kilo of bread, but who was gonna make all that bread?

Pasta Madre! at casarobino.