Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Which appliances useful in your Common House Kitchen?

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

RoseWind has about 25 people at a typical meal (twice a week) but  
easily accomodates 35. Or more in a pinch.

Our kitchen works beautifully for us.
Fridge-- is large, but not a noisy commercial one (ironically, the  
brand name on it is "Commercial"). No freezer in it -- we have a small  
upright freezer in the pantry. The fridge interior is spacious,  
without any drawers, door stuff, bins, etc, just adjustable shelves.  
Needs to hold large soup pots, hotel pans, etc.
Most of the time it only has condiments in it, but the day or so  
before people are cooking it has meal stuff in it. We don't keep  
leftovers -- send them home with people.

Convection oven- can cook 6 loaves of bread at once and have them all  
brown evenly. Situated right next to our tiled serving counter for  
ease of transfering hot pans.

Commercial dishwasher setup, countertop height, stainless counters.  
Ours is L shaped, with compost and pre-rinse bins (spray table, but we  
use a dish brush and dishpan instead, less messy and uses less hot  
water), then slide the rack into the machine, lower doors, blasts it  
with wash and sanitize and rinse, and a few minutes later it comes out  
the other side, steamy and clean, onto steel counter that fits a  
couple of the "done" racks. Triple sink for pot washing. Normal  
kitchen sink on the other side of the kitchen for general wash up  
while prepping.

Dacor gas cooktop. Not commercial, so it doesn't require fire  
suppression systems or get dangerously hot or require extra insurance.  
Just a regular range hood. What's good is that all six burners are  
flush, so the biggest pans sit well. Unlike another respondent, our  
Dacor has given us good service.

We don't have laundry facilities for the community. A small washer in  
the pantry is used for kitchen and dining linens-- cloth napkins, dish  
rags, dish towels, cleaning cloths.

Decisions we're real glad about: Corelle dishes -- almost all  
accumulated second hand. They are compact, almost unbreakable, simple,  
stack, and dry almost instantly.

My personal favorite appliance - a little blender wand made by  
Phillips or Krups or such. You can blend a giant pot of soup--- IN the  
pot, and just have this wand to rinse off.

Also useful- a Kitchen Aid quality mixer we got second hand, very  
solid. Small Cuisinart, for shredding carrots and such.

Best concept: kitchen has a clean side and a dirty side, being prep  
and serving, vs dirty dishes and dishwashing.

I think there are some photos of our kitchen on our web site
www.rosewind.org

Lynn Nadeau
Port Townsend WA
>