Fresh Stalls is launching a new series of gathering at the Food Lab Studio in Lokaal 432, dedicated to exploring the living connections between food, culture, health, and memory.

These events begin in the kitchen. Through hands-on cooking, shared preparation, and collective eating, participants are invited to learn by doing, tasting, folding, seasoning, listening. Food becomes both a material practice and a carrier of stories—of migration, land, care, and everyday rituals. Situated in IJburg, one of Amsterdam’s most diverse and evolving neighbourhoods, Kitchen Talks responds to everyday life in a city shaped by movement, encounter, and shared cultures. Food becomes a way to meet across global and local differences—not through representation, but through practice.

By cooking and eating together, residents and citizens are invited to experience cultural diversity as something lived and embodied, already present in daily routines. Rather than formal workshops, these are informal, welcoming encounters where cultural knowledge is transmitted through gestures, recipes, and conversation. Cooking together opens space for dialogue about where food comes from, how traditions travel and transform, and how memory is held in the body as much as in words.

Kitchen Talks grows out of the everyday life of Lokaal 432 itself. The building—reclaimed and activated through bottom-up initiatives—functions as a shared cultural and creative hub, shaped through daily use by neighbours, collectives, and local initiatives. Kitchen Talks offers a local space where food traditions can be shared, adapted, and remembered—around the table, with care.