Casa Robino

Taking my break last winter I had quite some free time to float around and recap. So I also used my time to write for shareable.net the article Every Guest a Host on what this casa is all about: What is it that makes me wanna do this, why do people like it so much, and what are the little things that make it a challenge to live here?

But more important, how do I find the right words to actually describe something that is so fluid, so creative and so dynamic? Is it possible? Well, let's say I got pretty far with this article and that for a large part it sums up at least how it feels.

The biggest catch of trash-food that I experienced so far in this country: 8 meters of table fully filled with veggies, fruit and bread was the result of a dumpster dive tour that I organised in Den Haag last Wednesday in cooperation with Stroom, a Den Haag based art-institute with a focus on the urban environment.

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.

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 tried to locate where you are... All the times I was in the past I was blindfolded and led to the Casa (especially by M.B.), but now I was 'invited' (by Roi, the Israeli guy who just left yesterday) for the dinner tonight but forgot where it exactly street, in which straat with long name.
It's not written *anywhere*. Care2share? Pls send me a private message, if you don't want it to be exposed.
Gracias!

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.

One of the great things about Dumpster Diving is that you never know beforehand what you will be cooking. So when I went to the market today, just before closing time, I was in fact very happy to find some aubergines (eggplant), tomatoes and red peppers (paprika). As usual the vendors at Ten Kate markt were very nice and allowed me to dive into their dumpsters at the same time as they were filling them. But I didn't expect the results of my cooking, it was so nice that even Rene was highly impressed :D

What I made:

"I went to the Albert Cuyp today", I said to Kasper when he came by today. "Ah really?", he answered, "so did I, but there was nothing to be found", he continued. I showed him the food in the kitchen, and said: "I guess you arrived just after I did".

Pedal, pedal, pedal, thumb, thumb, thumb. Look left, look right, flat farms, all identical. Stick out your thumb. 5, 10, 15 minuted. Red lights, brake. stop. get in. Ride.

Our journeys to Texel may have been quite different, but in the end we all arrived. Two may have biked, four may have hiked. Who cares. We are all here together, out of the casa robino.

Thursday dinners at the casa are just great. This dinner was a massive one, during the random roads week. We had great people coming over, and a very good time. Lots of things got done (although not necessarily the things we had planned in advance), there was a lot of enthusiasm and a great exchange of ideas and projects we all work on. And as usual, the dinner was made out of food we had taken out of the market dumpsters. This time we were with three teams, going to three different markets, bringing back home heaps of food that lasted for six days.