Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kitchen design Dishwashers

[Alexander Robin A (alexande.robi]

On an amusing note, in my misspent youth I used to cook at a place near Madison 
WI called Folklore Village that had wonderful ethnic festivals at times during 
the year. Eventually I became head cook for a couple of years. We definitely 
were not commercial - one old farmhouse kitchen with a wood burning stove in 
the center for heat and an old schoolhouse kitchen and 8th of a mile away with 
no running water. Soon after I went on to other things, they built a new 
building with a "commercial" kitchen. Boy was I envious.
 
Now that I'm involved in the development of a sizeable cohousing and am a bit 
older and creakier, my main priorities are as efficiently and easily as 
possible cooking and serving great meals to the community. Whatever facilitates 
that is great by me as long as it is not noise intrusive. I do not have the 
stamina or degree of masochism I used to have. At Folklore Village our 
festivals sometimes ran close to 100 people and we are talking about 3 fairly 
fancy meals a day plus midnight snack for a whole weekend; that taught me one 
can cook under almost any conditions if necessary, but why suffer? 
 
BTW this has been a very interesting thread. I'm glad for the ideas and various 
points of view - also surprised at the degree of passion this topic brings up.
 
Robin Alexander

________________________________

From: tamgoddess [at] comcast.net [mailto:tamgoddess [at] comcast.net]
Sent: Fri 12/8/2006 10:20 AM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Kitchen design Dishwashers



Too expensive for the commonhouse? That idea puzzles me. The cost is minor if 
spread out over all the households.

We have a Bosch and a Kitchenaid. I think any really high-quality residential 
dishwasher is fine. We use 2 for meals of 30-40 people, and it works well. I 
think it's important to note that we serve cafeteria-style, and folks who serve 
family-style will have more dishes. They might want 3 dishwashers, I don't know.

I'm strongly anti-commercial anything, as I think it makes the CH kitchen feel 
less homey, amongst other problems. Bigger and/or commercial is not necessarily 
better, especially for children and disabled people.

It's really, really important for everyone to feel that they are contributing, 
and not excluded, by the design of your CH.

Liz