Every night at the Hostel in the Forest, our kitchen cooks up an amazing meal, for our guests, but the mission of our communal kitchen goes beyond that simple meal. Much of our food is from the Hostel’s spray-free vegetable garden, ensuring that it is of the finest, freshest quality and is often picked minutes before a meal is prepared.

Our kitchen has two primary goals: The first is to create healthy and delicious meals every day of the week. Our food is prepared with care, love, and thoughtfulness for those that eat it. The menu is different everyday, providing a diet that is not only exciting, but fulfils the wide variety of our nutritional needs. The meals prepared by our kitchen staff are always vegetarian. Accommodations can be (and often are) made for guests with specific dietary needs, for vegans or those with food allergies.

The second goal of the kitchen is to create these meals in an environmentally sustainable way. We follow the three R’s, reducing, reusing, and recycling whenever possible. No food waste is created by the kitchen; all of our scraps are composted and returned to the soil. In cooking, we attempt to keep fossil fuel consumption to a minimum. We use dead wood from the forest to power our wood stoves and cob ovens, which frees us from the use of non-renewable resources. Raw dishes are often prepared, which further reduces our dependency on gas and electricity.

We also function as an educational facility. The kitchen staff is always trying new things, and is always willing to share their knowledge with our guests. Sustainable kitchen workshops are held regularly, as well as specific workshops on other interesting food practices (Kim Chee, cheese making, etc.).

Keep checking the website for the dates of these seminars!

The Hostel Kitchen Staff