Cohousing-L Mailing List: More about food handling

[Robert Hartman (hartman]

> From: "Hungerford, David" <dghungerford [at] ucdavis.edu>
> 
>  ... At home, you cut up one chicken; it takes five minutes. 
>  In cohousing, you cut up 12 chickens and it takes an hour (longer, 
> actually), and unless you're our registered dietician or otherwise extremely 
> conscientious about this sort of thing, you leave all the chicken out the 
> whole time.  

Just a note to say that when you are handling poultry you have to be extra
careful because about 30% of commercially sold birds are contaminated with
salmonella by the time they get to the store.

What you have to do when preparing poultry is to keep it separate from
all other foods, particularly food that will be served uncooked.  Do
_not_ use the same cutting board or counter to slice tomatoes after
you've placed a chicken on it.  Use a dilute bleach solution or vinegar
straight out of the bottle to wash down everything that touches the
chicken touches when you are done.  It really is best if you can save
the poultry prep until everything else is ready. 

Salmonella probably won't kill anyone, but it can sure make a person miserable.

>  ... regarding partitioning off the dining room to 60% capacity.  We've had 
> no 
> need to do that to keep a feeling of intimacy.  ...
>  ...  Sure you want to design to encourage interaction, 
> but you don't need to do things to prevent possibilities for privacy. In 
> fact, if you don't design to allow privacy, even in community spaces, you may 
> end up having problems.  

I hadn't really thought of this, but I see no contradiction.  If you partition 
the
dining room, people can use the smaller partition for semi-private or private
dining, and small or medium-sized meetings at other-than-mealtimes.

-r