Cohousing-L Mailing List: Oh no, it's that Kitchen topic again!

[Virginia Moreland (vmoreland]

Friends, 
   At East Lake Commons we're starting in earnest to plan our first Common
House, and I've volunteered for the kitchen committee. We've already mined
a great deal of useful information - from discussions here a few months
ago, from the resource pages, Rob's design tips, etc. But the group still
wanted me to post a query.
   
   We are on the large size - this phase will have 35 units and we can
forsee having regular dinner crowds of 50 or 60, and special occasions of
80 or more.  We're also fortunate to have among our friends a former core
member who has worked extensively as a professional cook. He came to our
first committee meeting and scared us half to death! So we're already
convinced that we need commercial grade appliances and more kitchen and
dining space than were in the first rough plans. And we're also going to
find a kitchen designer to consult.
   
   But we're not so sure about our needs for storage, food delivery,
logistics and labor. We don't know how many nights per week we'll do
dinner, but probably just two or three to start. Our friend recommends a
walk-in refrigerator and tells us we'll need to have food delivered a
couple of times a week. Our Common House is not even near the parking area,
since we all wanted it to have a nice view of the pond and gardens, but
there will be a firelane which could handle deliveries. Veggies will be
grown on site, but as he rightly point out, we probably won't want to be
carrying five-dozen potatoes up from the farm in a knapsack.                    
                        
   What's even more alarming is that he estimates it would take three or
four amateur cooks a full eight-hour workday to produce one dinner. It's
gotten us to thinking about finding a student at one of the local colleges
(where there are hospitality management programs!) to trade free room and
board for being chief cook, with the residents signing up as volunteer
teams to assist. Anybody done anything like that?   

   General words of wisdom are always welcome of course, but what we'd
really like is a few contacts at larger, established communities who'd be
willing to talk to one of our members about these issues. Anyone have a
contact at Nyland? I also seem to remember from the conference that
Elizabeth Bailey (Greyrock Commons, I think) had collected a lot of kitchen
data, but I've lost track of her email, phone, etc.

   Thanks in advance.

Ginny Moreland
East Lake Commons and Gaia Gardens
Atlanta (actually Decatur), Georgia

ginny [at] eastlakecommons.org
(404) 622-8187

In Atlanta, where it's already in the nineties.  Five weeks into the CSA
season we got our first flowers and carrots today.  The dam is almost
finished to create our pond, and the squeamish have to avert their eyes as
some of the trees go down (as few as possible naturally.)