Casa Robino

Cooking is language, cooking is identity, cooking is a primary need of all humankind. It is culinary skill, manual dexterity, and the ability to capture the right mix of flavor and spiciness. (...) a sign of humankind's serene relationship with nature and life. (ref). Those words I just read in the book Manifestos on the Future of Food & Seed, while waiting for everyone to sit around the table to eat the simple but great dinner Amylin had just prepared.

Dinner is a basic thing here in the house, it helps building community, it creates a nice atmosphere, and most important, space for everyone to interact with each other. Almost daily we therefore eat jointly with whoever is there. We always eat well here - the last couple of months also mostly freegan - with at times brilliant cooks.

Hey Nat!

I know that you aren't getting instant updates anymore, but just in case you happen to check the website...

I was re-looking through all of the nice things that you donated to the Casa kitchen, and I was overwhelmed. THANK YOU SO MUCH, NAT! There is now a myriad of spices and dried beans and so many little things that I've been looking for in a kitchen... Thank you for sharing.

happy travels, soulfooder :)

"Oh you cook so amazing". People here are totally amazed by Amylin's cooking skills, how she is turning waste into a great dinner. Today she is cooking for 11 people & maybe even some more people who still might be coming. We also just welcomed back Rene, who is just arriving at the right time. We have noodles, tomato & avocado salad, humus red pepper, curried collyflower with dahl, green garbage with cashew nuts and some stuff, a fruit and nut cake, an enormous chocolate cake, and coconut rice pudding with anice, cashews, rasins and cardemom - all vegan. Bisaha - eet smakelijk

Crust: ground peanuts and linseeds mixed in a food processor then blended with vegan margarine.

Next layer: sliced and mashed very ripe and sweet mini-bananas

Next layer: apple pieces, clementine slices, and raisins

Topping: egg-replacer (to hold everything together), agave nectar (or honey), cinnamon

I've been trying to eat raw this week, but I don't have the patience/money. Instead, I've just cut out the bread and sugar in my already vegan diet. Anyway, here are some ridiculously incredible-looking raw things with recipes, too:

Chocolate Raspberry Cake with Ginger Chocolate Mousse

Spinach and Wild Mushroom Quiche

Another wonderful dumpster-dove dinner.

Julian and I charged to the market at quarter past 5 through a typically drizzly amsterdam evening. We arrived just in time. The best score was a pile of shrink-wrapped broccoli heads. The most heart warming score - the guy who stopped us picking through the grapes in the dumpster so he could load up a bag of grapes straight from the table.

"We invaded Emily's Straat. The open air street market today early enuf to successfully dumpster (having missed it twice this week for being late). There was lots of produce to pick from and the vendors responded well when Lena asked in her high dumpster style of long pointy leather boots, frilly blue short skirt and bright Polish smile. So we captured ample tomatoes, mangoes, plums, papayas, cucumbers, kiwis, green beans, peppers, oranges, lemons and lots of avocados.