It's humid as a steam room and hot as hell down here four months/year; for a month either side of that it's pretty damn miserable. Increasingly I'm reluctant to do significant cooking inside bc it generates so much heat that has to be pumped out of the house via the AC; that just seems insane to me. Since the entire perimeter of the house I built is roofed and screened I decided to set up a summer kitchen adjacent the real one. Nothing fancy; having been cooking outside for a few months with a bare bones set-up, carrying all the accoutrements in/out every time, I decided to repurpose a large workbench as a counter for our Coleman LP two burner and toaster oven and will keep a small gaggle of pots/pans/utensils/hot pads and such as that in lidded bins outside. No plumbing, not yet anyway, but I can see the future possibility.
It became obvious that while having the two burner and toaster oven operational outside met the immediate goals of avoiding heat gain inside, the lack of support equipment (logistics, logistics, logistics) stowed outside made it pretty thrashy, so I'm resolving that but am not quite ready to commit to a sink, drawers and higher order stuff; a plastic bin for dirty equipment collection, transport inside for washing, and transport back outside. Plastic bins for storage, maybe hang some items, a shelf or two on the wall, more suitable lighting.
Anybody else have a summer kitchen? Not a fancy arrangement for swanky party time but something utilitarian, for every day use? I'd be interested in your approaches, experiences and perspectives.
