Counter space with spice shelves, and stove to the right

We’ve moved into the new temporary outdoor kitchen. All of the food, utensils, pots, and pans got carried over last week, and we set up the ol’ single burner rocket stove outside the door. We’ve finally got a roof over our heads (a truck topper roof, no less), sufficient counter space, the faithful filing cabinet for rodent-proof storage, high shelves for extra canning jars, plenty of hooks for utensils and cast iron pans, rain catchment with a gravity-fed sink, a big hotbox/seat/counter, and a very experimental three burner lorena-style stove inside.

It’s a really fun and funky interior space. It’s well organized with lots of space to hang and store items. The floor is gravel from a leftover and unfinished building project from a previous Dancing Rabbit member. We adapted the space to build our kitchen. The materials cost next to nothing, since 95% of the stuff was just lying around here already: lumber, old metal, windows, etc.

Stove in NE corner, sink in NW (with drain to buckets underneath), hotbox on far right

The interior stove is based on a lorena-style stove, with some modifications. There are three spaces for pots, which fit directly into the holes. The first hole is directly above a short heat riser. Surprisingly, it’s the second hole that is the hottest, though. The gases snake through the mass under each pot and out a chimney. The mass of the stove itself is a bunch of urbanite and a weird cob mix that Thomas made up: sand, clay, straw, some freebie refractory cement, and vermiculite. I have no idea what the ratios are (and I doubt he knows either). The first few fires proved slow to actually boil water, but since it’s dried out more, it has improved. I will have to do another timed test to see how long it takes to boil a kettle of water. (The first time is was a full 30 minutes – eek!)

Three burners and a lot of mass...

The kitchen has been really fun to use. It’s a good little space (under 100 square feet). Here’s a shot of the lovely Snack flipping a skillet cookie outside in the sunset two nights ago. (He caught it, but unfortunately it kinda fell apart in mid-air — look closely and you can see cookie particles flying off!)