Cooking Al Fresco
Last year, having just moved into our “ruin of a house” for a few months (see here, here and here), we stupidly decided to inaugurate our makeshift kitchen by making some carnitas. It was over 100 degrees outside, and after three hours of boiling, the kitchen felt like a sauna gone wild - and it was only April.
After a few experiences like this, we became resolved to move everything in the kitchen that produced heat, outside. Enter the outdoor kitchen.
What did we want our outdoor kitchen to have? A large Argentinean-style charcoal grill for steaks, two gas burners for slow braises that won’t heat up the kitchen and an oven for all that baking. Ample counter space for prepping and a sink for washing hands, chopping boards, etc. were also on the list.
Our checklist complete, we placed the outdoor kitchen just off the main kitchen opposite the formal dining table. We thought this would be a great way to connect the person boiling carnitas (that would be Brent) with the people sitting around the dining table drinking cocktails (that would be Stan and guests).
As the plan progressed, however, we found that having one person inside the screen doors and one person outside didn’t seem very conducive to entertaining. We also found that when not cooking, the rather large outdoor kitchen took up a lot of precious garden space in our courtyard. Instead of gazing over at lush plants, you would instead see a dusty counter top and a soot-stained barbecue. It just wasn’t right.
Time for a rethink. We know what we want, but what do we actually need? We can do most of our prep inside, so we could probably cope with less counter space. And how much baking do we really do? Perhaps we could usher the oven back inside. As for the sink, it’s a nice thing to have, but it doesn’t have to sit so prominently in the space.
Above is the latest iteration. Instead of sitting north of the kitchen building in the central courtyard, it resides in our rear garden to the south - conveniently in the space designated for our kitchen garden. Its new location allows it to be shared with gardening and other services, thus saving precious space.
Like the theme we are using in our kitchen, we have re-conceived the cook top as a stand-alone piece of furniture. When not in use, it will fold up and look like a work table in the garden. We have basically the same equipment, but it now blends much better with the garden and will be cheaper to construct (as we near the start of construction, trimming the budget is a recurring theme).
We’ve also added a sink to our service building out back (the white building on the right). Not only does it allow access to water when cooking outside, but it does double duty as a sink for gardening and other such activities.
All in all, we like our new design. We get to cook outside and in the garden. It’s really all we ever wanted.
