In 2009, Mexican artist and architect Raul Cardenas Osuna enlisted a motley crew of artists, researchers, designers and scientists to tackle a violence and crime epidemic with origins in the drug war that plagued Camino Verde, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Tijuana in Baja California. Known as Torolab, the group came up with a simple plan. They would use food and eating together as tools to rebuild their fractured community to make life better and safer. The idea led to creating a cookbook that has been central to their unique, highly experimental brand of activism and art-based urban intervention. And, it seems to be working.