Outdoor Kitchen Project
We have been holding the vision of this particular project for a number of years and we continue to refine it. Our goal is to have a place to cook and bake outside during the summer heat. We want to create a wood-fired earthen oven for baking bread and pizza and we want to be able to do all our summer canning outside to avoid heating up the house. Our design includes an L-shaped bench for lounging visitors and to sit on while eating or waiting. We desire counters for food prep and a table to use for outdoor dining. We want a roof to shelter us from rain and we're thinking of netting to limit the mosquito and black fly visitors.
We also want this to be an outdoor gathering place for community events. We will likely hold a number of workshops here over the years as well as social gatherings and it is nice to have a set up that encourages that.
Our first step will be finding someone to come and teach an earthen oven building workshop here. That person will give us the specifications for building a base for the oven. We also need to check local building codes and tax codes to make sure we're not adding to our already large property tax burden.
We've been designing this for years although we continue to refine the design. It'll be happening in stages and there may be in between steps. For instance, we've talked about the bench being cob and having the exhaust of a rocket stove travel through it to warm during the cooler seasons with a valve to redirect the heat during the warm months. That bench is unlikely to happen very soon so we'll probably build a wooden bench to last us for a while.
We plan on having some farm work day parties to work towards making this happen. Please let us know if you might want to be a part of this.