Cooking

I like to cook. I cook for relaxation and enjoyment. Cooking anything very complicated in the trailer is challenging. First there is the kitchen.

The kitchen counter is really just about five feet of counter featuring a miniature two compartment sink and a miniature three burner propane range, with about one foot between them. There are two partial cabinets below the counter and two large drawers. Overhead is a decent sized microwave, a very loud vent and a single cabinet. The "entertainment center" is also up there. One of the biggest problems is lack of space.

My Kitchen is very much like this

The trailer came with very little in the way of cooling implements. Basically a Coleman Camp Cookware set, suitable for a Boy Scout camping trip and a few plastic dishes. I had to supplement that but all most all of our stuff which survived was in storage. I did manage to salvage some Stainless Steel table ware. After soaking it in bleach, running it through her mothers dish washer three times She decided they could be used again.

The Entertainment Center

Luckily to have already developed a sort of shorthand cooking. For years we have taken trips to the Gulf Coast. We usually rented a Condos there and did a lot of our own cooking, so we had kind of a drill. I cut spices to the minimum, substituted butter for cooking oil and used only green onions, among other streamlining techniques. Spice were the most interesting. We eventually arrived at only two, garlic salt and Jerk Seasonings (usually McCormick's Jerk Seasoning in a glass bottle, but sometimes their cheaper, redder Caribbean Seasonings, with the Jerk was not available).

One of my early excursions was to Target to get some kitchen stuff, I didn't do very well. I bought a knife set in a wood Lazy Susan that contained some basic kitchen gadgets. It's too big and takes up too much space. I also discovered that a 4 cup coffee pot costs more than a 12 cup pot, but space is at a minimum so I splurged and paid the extra $2.00. I did better at K-Mart. I scored a nylon bag of cooking utensils for $5.00.

I tried using the FEMA pans and actually cooked on them for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately they were not up the challenge and I never could get used to them. She came to the rescue. She remembered a set of pots and pans we had recovered and stashed at her mothers. She ran them through the dishwasher three times and brought them to me as a surprise one afternoon.