Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Kitchen Equipment for Common House

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Commonhouse


At Muir Commons in Davis, CA, while average meal attendance is 35-45 
out of  about 70 people, we are very grateful we planned our kitchen 
and dining room  to accomodate the entire community.  While the average 
meal is less, it is  frequently the case (2-3 times per month, or 
2-3/20 meals) that almost  everyone eats or someone invites a group of 
guests.  We've had some meals  with as many as 80 in attendance.  If we 
didn't have a large enough facility  to accomodate them all, then we 
would have to overflow into other rooms or  ration meals (first-come, 
first-served?).  Either option seems unacceptable  to me.  When we were 
planning the Common House, the idea of making the dining  room large 
enough for only the average came up as a cost-cutting option, but  
Chuck (Durrett) said we'd be very sorry.  I think he's right on that 
point.   Remember, the experience of eating meals as a community is 
deeply affected by  the built environment.  If you want limited meals 
participation, build a  small dining room.  If you want people to avoid 
cooking, then make it  difficult by building a small kitchen.  If you 
want to limit the variety of  meals, then buy "regular" appliances 
which can't accomodate more elaborate or  more creative meals.

It seems that the challenge is to make a kitchen that functions as a  
commercial kitchen in terms of ease of preparation and cleanup, space,  
storage, and hygiene, but which  feels like our own home: warm, cozy,  
inviting.  Our kitchen committee, working with Chuck Durrett as a  
consultant, did a great job, considering we didn't have any other model 
 except the European communities.  Ours is large and has all 
"commercial"  appliances, but still retains a homey, non-commercial 
feel (with a couple of  exceptions I'll get to). So, to Monika's question:

Dishwasher:  we have a Hobart under counter model with bleach 
sterilization  and pre-heater (so we don't have to keep the hot water 
at a critter-killing  140 degrees) and three removable racks. It cost 
$3000 and is worth every  penny.  It will do a load in under 3 minutes, 
which means clean-up can be  accomplished in a reasonable amount of 
time.  The person who "persons" the  dishwashing station loads and 
rinses the dishes (we've gotten to where we  leave out bus tubs (those 
gray 14x24 plastic tubs) with soapy water so people  bus can their own 
dishes and start them soaking) then loads and swaps racks  every 3 
minutes.  We end up doing between 10 and 15 loads per meal(including  
cooking paraphernalia).  I just don't see how one could use a standard  
dishwasher for more than 8-10 people.

Sinks:  We have a faily expensive double-deep well sink with one of 
those  spray nozzles (an expensive but indispensable device) hanging 
over.  It has  been a problem in that, in an attempt to keep the 
kitchen as homey as  possible, we used a "drop-in" sink in a standard 
formica-topped 24" deep  cabinet.  After three years the counter and 
cabinet are trashed--water  damage.  The dishwashing area stays wet for 
long periods of time. We'll be  replacing that with a stainless steel 
sink setup that can hold the  dishwasher racks while we spray off the 
dishes.  Fortunately, that area is  out of view of the dining room so 
the visual impact won't be too bad.

Refrigerators:  We have a Victory commercial double door (that is, 5 
feet  wide) fridge with the compressor unit on top (about $3000).  We 
went  commercial because standard home refigerators can't recover (that 
is, return  to the set temperature) fast enough to keep the food safe, 
at least when  there is lots of in and out like there is with ours.  We 
have a  registered dietician in our group whose chosen mission is to 
make sure we  observe proper food hygiene,  and she convinced us this 
was important.  We  also wanted enough space to store leftovers.  While 
our condiment collection  is a bit larger than necessary, it is really 
nice to be have enough room to  buy food in advance, or in bulk.  It's 
also nice to have a place to put the  salads or other cold dishes until 
mealtime.  We also have developed a very  workable leftover system.  
People are charged 1/2 price for each meal of  leftovers they eat 
(self-reported on a tally sheet). Most of us snag a  container for 
lunch, or even dinner if a meal isn't scheduled.  Our meal cost  still 
averages just over $2/meal, and we very seldom run out of food at meals 
 anymore; people aren't afraid to make too much because the leftovers 
get  eaten.  And we couldn't do this if we didn't have room in the 
fridge.  The  downside is that the damn thing sounds like a train.  We 
had to move it out  of the kitchen into our (fortunately large enough) 
bulk storage room.  We  have a small "regular" freezer and use it very 
little for common stuff.  Most  of the space in the freezer is taken by 
vegetables and fruits people put up  (for themselves) in the summer, so 
no one has their own freezer (not that  anyone has room). The freezer 
is an example of a shared tool, like the lawn  mower, which has common 
and private uses.

Stove:  We have a Wolf 6-burner restaurant stove and we hate it.  In 
fact, we  just installed (where the refrigerator used to be) a 
"regular" KitchenAid 30"  double oven (electric, $1200).  The 
commercial gas oven wouldn't keep a  constant temperature and didn't 
heat evenly inside--many baked meals were  late or burned until people 
just gave up and stopped using it.  The new ovens  are great.  The 30" 
width (standard width is 24" measured by the opening it  fits into) is 
wide enough inside to handle 2 9x13 casseroles(or one 13x20)  per 
shelf--so we can bake 8 casseroles at once (2 shelves per oven), or 
bake  two different dishes at different temperatures.  The Wolf oven is 
gathering  cobwebs.  If we had it to do over again, we would probably 
skip the commercial range, going instead for a high end countertop 
unit--KitchenAid, GE, Jenn-Air and some others offer 2-burner systems 
that you can substitute griddles and grills for, and build a counter 
with 6 burners (3 instead of the  normal 2 units)--and of course, the 
double ovens.  To belabor my previous point, just having the ovens has 
changed our diet; we eat more baked  dishes (and breads and rolls and 
cakes and cookies) because it is easier.  I  regard this as good, 
although I've noticed that many waistlines are  expanding.

Vent hood:  Maybe because we had the Wolf, the city made us put in a 
huge,  ugly, expensive ($3000) commercial vent hood with fire 
suppression system  and elaborate grease drain--as if we were going to 
grill steaks every night.   It is the most obtrusive feature of our 
kitchen, and makes so much noise it  drowns conversations.  If anyone 
currently planning their kitchen can figure  out a way to sidestep this 
monster, do it.

Pots/Pans:  Go commercial.  Even though $200 sounds like a lot for a 10 
qt.  stock pot, even the best "regular" stuff like Magnalite and 
Farberware just  doesn't stand up.  The handles break, or they seem to 
require much more  attention to keep from burning large volumes of 
food.  Anyone in cohousing  who has eaten the inevitable "singed" 
spaghetti knows exactly what I mean.   Go for top quality stainless 
with thick bottoms.  Ours still look like new.  Dishes:  Commercial 
dishes don't chip or break as easily, flatware doesn't  bend as easily, 
and both can be replaced easily (patterns are  long-lived).  And 
honestly, the stuff is not that much more expensive and the  patterns 
are benign enough that consensus can be reached in just a few  meetings(!)

And for Rob, why do people not participate in meals?  I suppose 
everyone has  different reasons, and you pegged most of them, but you 
didn't suggest one  thing I've observed, and that is that eating at the 
Common House, at least in  our community, tends to be cyclic within 
families as well as with the entire  group.  Weather makes a 
difference; winter meals, on average, are better  attended.  I don't 
know if in summer people have more (conflicting)  activities, or if 
early darkness or the weather itself has an effect. Other  climates 
might be different.  I know that in summer we tend to have more  "feast 
day" type meals that people spend all day preparing and almost  
everyone eats.  As a family, we tend to eat almost every meal for 
awhile, and  then not eat for a month--for no other reason than that's 
what we just stop  signing up.  As long as there isn't a real "problem" 
that keeps people from  enjoying their meals, expect a little ebb and 
flow.  To deal with problems,   we've had "meals check-in" at general 
meetings a couple of times, and have  addressed noise, kid energy, and 
other what works and what doesn't questions,  which has helped diffuse 
tensions and made meals work better for everybody.   And we'll probably 
do it again to keep fine-tuning and to keep responding to  people's 
changing lives.

At Muir Commons everyone cooks and everyone cleans, whether they eat in 
the  Common House or not.  It's not a "rule" but a "guideline."  If 
someone just  can't fit cooking into their schedule one month, or is on 
vacation, or having  a life crises, then they may beg off by just not 
signing up, and no one  really checks up on it anyway. However, it is 
expected from all adult members  of the community (including housemates 
and room renters) as part of basic  participation; an even higher 
priority than meetings.  We felt, in making  this decision, that our 
meals would not work if people could escape cooking  by saying "I don't 
eat" because once someone stopped cooking, they couldn't  even sign up 
for one meal without feeling guilty.  The attrition would  eventually 
drop meals participation below critical mass.  Whoops, this is too long 
so I'll stop.
"Hungerford, David"  <netmail!dghungerford [at] ucdavis.edu>  5-94