re-kitchening

Among the two thousand projects we're engaging in today (we worked until almost midnight last night, then Dad and I got up around 6AM to haul a mass of trash down to the street), one looms large for me: constructing a "field kitchen" for Mom. We're losing the regular kitchen today; the cabinets are being ripped out and the appliances are being unplugged, all in preparation for what we hope will be the kitchen's miraculous transformation into a newer, sleeker incarnation.

Dad tells me he has two pieces of camping equipment that might be helpful in constructing a field kitchen: (1) a dining fly, and (2) a three-room(!) tent. The tent will serve as a storage space for many of Mom's cooking supplies; the dining fly will be the active kitchen. Because the dining fly is little more than tent-shaped mosquito netting, we'll have to overlay it with one or more tarps to protect the cook (me, Mom, or maybe even Dad) from the wind. As I told Mom, we're turning her into a pojang-macha ajumma.

A kitchen breaks down into at least these parts: (1) a cold prep area, (2) a washing area, (3) a plating/service area, (4) a quick-access storage area, (5) a cooking area, and (6) a garbage/disposal area. We ought to be able to set something up in the dining fly's 12'x12' area that provides most of this; the remaining functions will be fulfilled by the tent, by the downstairs pantry in the utility room, and by the two fridges. Other issues include (1) the provision of hot water, (2) interior lighting of both the dining fly (which will be dark once we overlay it with a tarp) and the storage tent, (3) a steady power supply for whatever electric equipment will come outside, (4) the most Mom-friendly setup for the makeshift counters, and (5) whatever else suddenly comes to mind.

Having noted all the above, it's time to stop farting around online and get moving. Photos of the kitchen may follow-- tomorrow, if not today. We also have plenty of furniture-moving to do today (should've been done yesterday, dammit), so this might be the only blog post for a while.


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