The Dirty Kitchen Cookbook (Preview)

Forord
Foreword
Everything started like a game.
Joachim and I were very curious to learn some Indian cuisine secrets and Satra offered to “do a lesson”
for us. While he would cook the next week, Joachim and I would observe and take notes so we could
learn a new dish. We didn’t know yet that that would be the first of an entire year of International Dinners.
That evening started with a lot of excitement. I actually arrived there with a paper and a pencil, ready
to carefully take note of every single detail. After only 15 minutes I realised that it was completely impossible
to take notes though because, I don’t know if you know Indian cuisine, but trust me: it’s not what you
would define as “easy and straightforward to cook!”
Still, we really enjoyed that night. Me and Joachim experienced a new flavour, a new smell that an Indian
restaurant abroad would never give us, and, at the same time, I saw in Satra’s eyes the happiness of seeing
people from other countries so curious and desirous to taste his own culture. So I told Joachim and
Satra—who would become two of my best friends in the dorm—that we could repeat this experience the
week after, this time with a new country: France. The week after that, we could do Italy, my country.
At the second International Dinner, we were no longer three, but seven. And the Sunday after, we were
even more. That was the beginning of many Sundays in the name of exploration of new cultures’ flavours.
But the reality is more than that, maybe because the flavours and cuisine of a country are the mirror of
the soul of that country as well. These Sundays helped us to discover knowledge sometimes totally far
removed from, and sometimes unexpectedly so close, to our own cultures.
These Sundays taught us to recognise the importance of receiving a gift. Yes, a gift, because every cook
has always pledged hard to do well: sometimes cooking from the morning, sometimes asking his parents
the recipe in detail, sometimes being worried about the results. In this sense, it was always an honour for
each of us to receive this privilege to “enter” another country for a night without paying for a plane ticket.
But these dinners also gave us the possibility to learn to give: give to other people from all over the world
the possibility to access our world and enjoy the flavour of our respective countries.
It’s easy to guess then, that this fixed appointment every Sunday has also been the start of many strong
and unforgettable friendships. Since that first International Dinner, we have never skipped this tradition.
During the week each of us are completely immersed in our lives at work, spending time with other
friends, our Danish courses, and so on. But come Sunday evening, everybody is in that Dirty Kitchen. It is
kind of a fixed point in our frenetic schedules. We look forward to it. And this is the reason that our dinners
have grown bigger and bigger, now often hosting over 25 seats in that kitchen on the third floor of
Teknologkollegiet.
Each of us brought something to those Sundays. Each of us received something from those Sundays. And
this is the reason why we don’t want to forget it.
This book that you are going to read is the child of our amazing trip from all our kitchens all over the
world. Take it as a gift and be as curious as we have been so you can enjoy all these recipes—or poems—
to the fullest.
Maria Celeste Fasano
Værelse 3.02
September 2015—July 2016
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