Kitchen connection. A must have. No matter where I live 🤓🌱

2020 I lived the life of a full time Nomad. Fortunately, I somehow managed to pretty smoothly find my way through the restricting times. With 2 month being the longest I’ve lived in one place.

Thankfully, I always found new beautiful communities, projects, gatherings or friend’s that generously opened their doors. And my trust into the unknown kept manifesting magic moments throughout the year ✨

Having lived in numerous places all over Switzerland, parts of Germany and Italy, I recently wondered:

In how many different kitchens did I actually cook in the year 2020?

So I travelled back in time, and came back with some figures and highlights:

Most basic kitchen

A friend and I spent some days at a tiny old hut in the Swiss mountains. Deepest winter. No electricity. No running water. The unheated kitchen was a walkable fridge (or even freezer). We were cooking gorgeous and simple vegan meals on fire and gas.

Most professional kitchen

For one month in late 2020, I was part of the kitchen team at the Nature Community in Germany.

Proper industrial kitchen: Sharp knives in all sizes, giant ovens, powerful sound system (with touch screen and Spotify), fully organic and plant-exclusive products ✨

Most impressive food discovery

On our way to my friend’s garden house, we stopped at an old tree trunk. And there it was: Laetiporus sulphureus (also known as “chicken of the woods”). A mushroom that completely blew me away.

Boiled in salt water for 20 minutes, ripped apart and fried in some oil and… baaaaam! The closest thing to chicken flesh I’ve ever eaten since switching to a vegan lifestyle – flavour and consistency. Simply incredible.

Recipe of the year

The discovery of the buckwheat groat dough is definitely among my highlights this year. It’s simple, tasty, nourishing, and filling. And it acts as a base for very creative bread and cake creations!

Some Key Insights

• Having worked in such a rainbow of kitchens, one thing I definitely gained was flexibility. Place me in any kitchen and I work with what’s available.
• Cooking in (let alone leading) a team requires people skills. And that has a huge impact on the atmosphere in a kitchen. Some people are made for it, some are not.