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.

How did i feel when i put my arm, for the first time in my life, into a dumpster?
...not to put something in it, but to get something out?
It felt, well, squishy.
Thats right, my hand stumbled right upon a rotted apple.
Now i know, you have to be choosey with what you pick up. Some pieces of fruit may look solid, but they arn't.
The next thing i got out of the aeroplane, i mean, experience, was an appricot.
I like appricots, so i was pretty stoked, or as you non aussies say, "happy", about that.

Random mazes, collective dinner preparation, never ending cooking sessions, one big fest, no ending, no start, always going on. How many words do you think we exchanged? New connections and mutual ideas. Group photos, people arriving from Korea, Brussels, Portugal, Barcelona, Twin Oaks, Tartu, Madrid, Amsterdam East, South and North, further west and from around the corner, as well as friends always arriving at the right time. You know what would be really funny? If the internet would just stop.

Dumpster Treasure

Tuesday we went to the Albert Cuyjp Market and though it looked grim at first, we hauled home two full bags of dumpstered treasure! We cleaned up our finds and it was quite a spread. Spinach, lychees, mangoes, cauliflower, pineapple, 4 little cartons of cherry tomatoes, brussel sprouts, peppers, and more!

It brings to mind a line from Jeannette Winterson's book, Art Objects: The message coloured through time is not lack but abundance.

Abundance indeed.

Hey there casa crew... ok so an update...

I found the perfect getaway hide out in Leiden... am now resting up there for a while i guess. Living with two beautiful guys in a squatted old pub, lots of diving, lots of food not bombs, lots of awesomeness....

Today's dumpster haul from the Dappermarkt by Angie, Caroline, and Ethan garnered us about 30 pounds (15 kilos) of fruit and veggies, including a dozen clementines, many potatoes, 5 mangoes, 2 GIANT and many smaller carrots, grapes and strawberries, tomatoes, avocadoes, a basil plant, a bulb of fennel, a box of beautiful mushrooms, and peppers upon peppers upon peppers.

There are many great things about dumpster diving. One of these is that sometimes you end up with veggies or fruits you never had on your plate before. Like today, when I went out with Marc dumpstering at the Ten Cate Market, we hit the jackpot with kilos and kilos of some food we had never seen before. And after cooking and eating it, I really wanted to know more about the delicious food I just had.

Saturdays are always a great day for Dumpstering in Amsterdam. And what is a cozier place for dumpstering than the most famous Amsterdam market, Albert Cuyp? Not only you will find lots of left-overs between 5 and 6 but you also get to meet quite a few of your fellow divers.

This Saturday I recognized 2 women with whom I had gone through some bins before. Now though there were quite some more people I hadn't met before, making us a total of 8.

Hey Casa Robino!

If you see a lot of edits sprout up on trashwiki, here's a possible reason:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/finding_good_trash.html

If you haven't encountered makezine yet, check it out! It's a sweet resource for learning how to make stuff (like wind turbines)!

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