The Small Living Journal authors thought it would be fun to devote this issue to food and cooking in small spaces. You’ll read a number of different stories and strategies to deal with cooking in small spaces.

Tell us about your minimalist cooking strategies in the comments section.

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In my long history of culinary disasters, perhaps my most ignoble moment was managing to set my kitchen cabinets on fire attempting nothing more than to boil a pot of water.  My survival strategy when it comes to food is simple… I fall in love with men who LOVE to cook. They cook and I happily do all the clean-up. (Even for the one who made it look like Julia Child had not only been busy in the kitchen but had actually been murdered in said kitchen.)

And when that plan has failed, I either eat out or survive on unlikely combinations such as beer and ice cream and an unhealthy amount of  Captain Crunch Peanut Butter cereal. (Yes, Tammy, I can see you sadly shaking your head over there. But I’m being honest.)

What has been interesting, though, is how my cooking and eating habits have begun to change since moving into my little floating home.  While my pantry is pretty expansive compared to what you would find in a Tumbleweed, it is still significantly smaller than anywhere I’ve lived previously.  There simply is not a lot a room to stockpile items that are likely to be around for a long time. Moreover, trash management can be a hassle in a marina.  Any sort of packaging you haul in is also going to need to be hauled out. And I got tired of hauling pretty quickly.

What I’ve noticed as a result is that my diet has shifted significantly away from preprocessed/packaged foods and more towards items such as fresh fruit and vegetables.  (Admittedly, some of this has also been a conscious effort on my part to live on something more than just breakfast cereal as I try to improve my general health.)  That combined with the fact that I have no patience for cooking times of anything more than a few minutes has translated into my diet starting to vaguely resemble that of a raw foodist.

Additionally, now that I’m spending so much less on housing costs, I have more available funds to invest in quality food.  I’m buying organic and locally grown wherever possible.  I have two farmer stands within a few minutes of my house and also a fantastic Farmer’s Market in downtown Portland on Saturdays.

I’ve never been much for grocery shopping, but I enjoy farmer’s markets.  They’re much more of a social outing and adventure than simply a task to check off my list.  I’ve also noticed that if I’ve gone to the trouble of picking something up at the farmer’s market I’m much less likely to let it go to waste than if I just absentmindedly threw it at my cart at Safeway.

All in all, it’s been interesting to see how my shift in housing has had an impact also on my eating.  Below I have included a brief tour of my kitchen.  (And I just have to note that, once again, I’ve managed to be upstaged by my cat.  He’s becoming quite the little camera hound.)

I’ve been slowly working toward cooking and eating more simply and wanted to share some thoughts and a recipe website I’m launching that I hope will help more people begin to experiment with simple cooking.

Key Ingredients to Tiny House Cooking

Smart Shopping – Buy only the foods you plan to eat because storage in a tiny house is limited. You’ll also reduce potential waste and spoiled food. This is easier for people that live close to where they shop.

Buy Fewer Refrigerated Foods – Many of us take our refrigerators and freezers for granted but in a tiny house the refrigerator, if you have one, is most likely a mini-fridge. If you are able to shop regularly you may actually be able to virtually eliminate the need to have a refrigerator. At the end of the day the amount of refrigerator space you need really depends on what you choose to eat. Less refrigerated foods means less space and energy needs to be dedicated to keeping food fresh.

Avoid Packaging – The less packaging you buy the less trash you generate. As you can imagine a tiny house can’t have a big trash can and if you peek in your own trash can and recycle bin right now you’ll notice that food packaging tends to be the biggest contributor to our waste stream.

Buy Healthy Ingredients – By all means buy and eat food that is good for you. I’ve begun to think of it like this, if it’s not organic it probably means it was produced with pesticides. Unnatural stuff used to produce like pesticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics, and steroids, are there to produce food more profitably. These foods are often less expensive but does it make any sense to eat them?

Simple Preparation – Cooking simple meals means you’ll need to store, use, and clean fewer pots and dishes. It should also take less time and energy to prepare meals. The most obvious benefit is that simple meals require little space for preparation which means less time working, more time eating and enjoying each other.

Solar Cooking – This is a great way to cook without spending a dime on electricity or combustible fuels. You can buy solar ovens and kits online but you can also learn to build one yourself. My favorite place to look for information on solar ovens is the Solar Cooking Yahoo Group.

Simple Clean-Up -Simple cooking means less time spent cleaning up too. It also means that the need for a dishwasher, a large sink, or even many dishes, is reduced significantly.

TinyHouseCooking.com

My continuing exploration into tiny house cooking has helped me re-think how I shop for food, prepare, eat, and clean up my kitchen. It’s been helping me eat better and save time cooking and cleaning… but I still have a long way to go.

So I’ve launched a website called Tiny House Cooking which will become a free website filled with simple recipes. Right now there are only a few recipes and I’m looking for people to share their recipes. If you have a good recipe and want to share it write it up and I’ll post it on Tiny House Cooking.

A lot.

I have to digress here and note that as I have grown up, I have never ceased to be astonished by the amount of time, energy, and sheer activity required in the maintenance of a space and the life it contains. Spending hours preparing a meal and cleaning up after it remains a concept almost impossible for my mind to accommodate.

This makes eating difficult.

So, barring a magic kitchen that prepares my food and cleans the dishes, I’ve discovered that in order to eat food that I can enjoy, the preparation and cleanup must be extremely easy. In order for that to be the case my food storage, preparation, and cleanup station MUST be simple and efficient. Having my own tiny house has given me the unprecedented luxury of designing my own highly functional simple cooking setup.

I’m not going to write about recipes or my philosophical perspectives on food in this issue, except to say that I avoid purchasing meat that isn’t fish, that I’ve started my first garden this year, that I am averse to cooking anything that takes longer than thirty minutes and unlikely to prepare anything that requires more than an hour, and that I rather despise recipes. (Cooking, for me, is almost always an exercise in improvisation, and frequently draws on an idea I like to call MexItalian Fusion).

I would like to talk a bit about my kitchenette, which is something to which I’ve devoted a fair bit of time and experimentation.

Here is the layout.

(Not that It’s actually been entirely implemented yet. Far from it. But I’m pretty sure that this is what it’s going to ultimately be like. I’ll start with what I’ve got so far, which presumably is the most important elements.)

The bulk of the primary storage, preparation, and cleanup is laid out linearly. I have 11.5 sq/ft of counter/workspace which is directly adjacent to the stove. I think this may be the most important thing of all. In my cooking experience, nothing is more frustrating than inadequate prep space located more than arms length from the stove top. (Nothing has delighted me more than having my buddy Dylan, a chef, test out my kitchen and tell me he thinks it’s more functionally designed than most full-sized kitchens – another victory for the design-by-prototype approach.) Eventually, this location will also host a small cabinet for essential foodstuff, as well as recessed under-counter storage,  and a couple stools that can live underneath as well for simple eating at the counter.

Directly to the right of the counter space, located under a window, is the little Magic Chef four-burner apartment stove. (The window location is rather crucial because it provides great ventilation). This little champ is only 20 inches wide and less than 24 deep, and more than adequate for the sort of cooking I do. These things are cheap used ($60 dollar range) and as common as flies, and this one is converted over to run on liquid propane. (As is the on-demand water heater. This makes for a completely propane driven kitchen, which lends itself exquisitely to off-the-grid living powered by two 5 gallon propane tanks.)

To the right of the stove is a big, ugly, plastic utility sink. It had been sitting outside the shop at work doing nothing for about a year until I asked my boss if I could have it. It gets the job done for the time being, but if I can find a sink of the same dimensions but with two basins, that’s the sort of thing I really want.

So here’s my big idea for dish cleanup and storage – the little dish cabinet is going to be located directly above the sink (high enough up to avoid banging your head). But it’s going to have an open bottom, and instead of shelves it’s just going to be dish racks, thus integrating dish washing, drying, AND storage. Pretty cool, huh? I’ve heard a rumor that this is common in Spain.

As you can see, there appears to be something located directly under another window, obstructing the access to the sink. This is a little (probably Ikea) rolling island butcher block that I picked up used for $7. It more or less lives in that location, partially obstructing sink access, until it’s time to cook or clean, at which point it easily rolls over a few feet and blocks off access to the bathroom. Not the most elegant arrangement I suppose, but it gives me another 2.5 sq/ft of counter space, some shelving, and utilizes the principle of Sequential Access in a way that’s not terribly inconvenient.

In the corner by the island and the bathroom door is a hypothetical floor-to-ceiling pantry. This will be used for bulk dry food storage, etc.

On the other side of the bathroom door is my latest folly, the newly restored Randall icebox, presumably built in 1921 (if we are to believe the ancient sticker pasted inside the ice compartment).

It was my Christmas present from my parents, who had had it forever. My dad had been using it to store hydraulic fittings for a couple decades. I’ve spent the past six months restoring it, off and on. I stripped out all the old lead paint, tarpaper, and nasty paneling, put in a bunch of extruded polystyrene insulation, and put her back together. Friday I finally inaugurated her with thirty pounds of dry ice, a 12 pack of coca cola, and a gallon of milk.

I’m still working out the kinks, but i’ve got an ice-cold coke for anyone who wants to come visit. Unfortunately that’s about all I can offer. I just checked on it and all thirty lbs of dry ice has all sublimated away in 48 hours. I have to go back to the drawing board on this one – one of the obvious drawbacks of the design-by-prototype approach.

My cooking setup is rounded out by a salvaged charcoal grill I’ve got out on the deck. There’s really not much else I could ask for in a kitchen. Sure a microwave and a toaster oven would come in handy, but they consume a lot of electricity and take up more space than I can afford to sacrifice.

Somehow, I think I’ll get by.

Depending on how tiny my living space is, I always have room for my favorite small appliance, the FoodSaver. It comes in several different models, but mine will stand upright to save space on my countertop if I decide to keep it out all the time. Although most people are familiar with what they are, some are not. The FoodSaver is a vacuum pack system used to seal and store foods to keep them fresh for long periods of time.

As with many other appliances it comes with lots of different accessories like different sizes of bags, canisters, bottle stoppers, sealer tops, etc. But, I don’t have alot of those. I do have the Mason Jar Sealer and I love it. I save on alot of the accessories by buying Mason Jars instead of FoodSaver canisters which can be rather expensive. I can also save lots of foods, wet and dry, in Mason Jars without vacuum sealing them. For the most part though, I generally use the bags for meats and solid things while using the Mason Jars for soups & stews.

Now, don’t get the idea that I clutter up my kitchen space with jars and vacuum packed foods because I don’t! You might not think someone living alone would even use one of these things. They are primarily used for larger families that buy bulk food quantities at large wholesale stores. But, I don’t use mine for those kinds of things. I generally go to places that make me up meals I can pack up and save for later. I might buy a meal for 3 instead of 1 and then make them into smaller meals to refrigerate or freeze. Then, I just drop one in boiling water or heat them up in the microwave. In northeastern winters I make up my favorite soups & stews, while in summer months I use it to keep salad stuff and summer fruit items fresher.

My next favorite appliance is a compact freezer that stands upright and opens from the top. The size I get depends on how much space I have, but I never have a very big one. For now (and until I build my tiny house), I generally use just the refrigerator with a freezer that comes standard in an apartment complex.

And last, but not least, I have a small convection/toaster oven that bakes, broils, heats, cooks and toasts. I almost never use the large oven that comes standard in the apartment complex I live in. It uses a lot of electricity and to cook for one, it is not necessary when I have my convection oven. I also use a small microwave to heat foods and make my tea quickly.

But, I don’t really even need all of that! With a little imagination from my simple mind, I create very simple meals like soups, stews and meat, chicken or fish with a salad or those steamer vegetables that you pop in the microwave for a couple of minutes. I never thought vegetables could taste so good yet be so easy…no tedious pickovers at the produce stand, no storing, no cutting, no cooking!! I don’t like alot of ingredients in my meals because I don’t like to store them. I can make very tasty meals with only butter, salt, pepper, sugar and a few select spices. All in all, I try to make all my eating needs very simple.

With all this said, I have to be honest. I am not really a big fan of cooking at all!! I am lucky enough to live in an area where I can get very tasty, healthy, home-cooked meals to go. More often than not, I take advantage of this method since the ingredients are fresh daily and it saves me from having to store alot of stuff for cooking it on my own. While this is a bit more expensive, it has always been cheaper for me than throwing away spoiled food I didn’t use up in time.

All of the kitchens in my Texas apartments had counter space, full-size fridges, large sinks, newer ovens, adequate pantries, dishwashers, and microwaves. In my Santa Cruz homes, they’ve all been lacking somewhere. The first place had fairly decent shelves for dishes and dry goods, and a not terribly small counter for food prep, though with a toaster oven, coffee maker, etc., counter space easily became scarce. The stove was a 50s-era gas apartment-size model and the fridge was a mini. The first thing I did when I got to Santa Cruz was scour craigslist for a couple of days until I found someone getting rid of a 9-cubic-feet fridge and headed over to pick it up. There was no way I was going to be able to live with a teeny fridge. I dread going to the grocery store like some people dread paying taxes. It isn’t something I want to do more than I absolutely have to. If you don’t have a garden, don’t like going grocery shopping every two days, or you don’t eat all your meals out, a mini fridge just doesn’t cut it. The one holiday party I tried to throw there had to move outside once more than three people had arrived and the house itself mostly served as the vessel holding the fridge holding the beer (see cramped vessel fridge over my right shoulder).

The next place I lived had plenty of pantry space in the form of built-in cabinets and built-in fridge space, long vacant; and the functioning fridge was the largest fridge I’d ever laid eyes on, though completely disproportionate to the size of the apartment. However, there was no counter (save the miniscule space next to the freestanding sink which I had to use for my dish-drying rack), so I got a kitchen table which doubled as prep space. Eating in this space was wonderful. There was a little nook where we had placed my old formica table, with a window looking out over the Boardwalk in the distance and the neighborhood crazies below; Ty and I would enjoy watching the ensuing craziness with an open window and an open bottle of wine. But the part leading up to that could be miserable. The stove was awkwardly placed, the ventilation less than ideal, and we had to clean up at least some before we could use the table for eating our meal.

I know I’ve talked about the nightmare that was cooking in the trailer where I lived with Ty last summer and fall, but allow me to reiterate. We had a mouse-infested pantry and shelves, a mini-fridge which liked to freeze anything pushed to the back, a hot plate that couldn’t boil water, and an extra-small sink that would quickly run out of hot water. We eventually learned to make do cooking there, thanks largely to a reliance on pasta and a microwave. Of course, during this time I gained 10 pounds and forgot what veggies tasted like.

My current home is an amalgam of all the others. The fridge is large and old. The sink is nestled in a corner with about 16 inches of counter space next to it (also mostly used to hold my drying rack). I have a few drawers under that counter space (that refuse to close all the way) and besides that, there is a very strange built-in open shelf area on the wall opposite the sink, which has some very short, deep cabinets beneath, which is the most frustrating space I’ve ever had for a pantry. Luckily, I’m a decent organizer and have amassed quite a bit of Container Store shelving thanks to living in so many apartments with different storage requirements. Nonetheless, preparing food in this space is a challenge and the ventilation leaves quite a bit to be desired.

A week ago, I had four friends over for dinner. My friend Briana and I shared cooking and baking duties, and maneuvering around each other to cook a four-dish meal was kind of a nightmare. We had three main course dishes, two sauces, and one dessert, and I didn’t have enough pots, pans, and bowls for everything. The gravy had to be put in a cup so we could use the same pan to sautee mushrooms. After we boiled potatoes, we had to transfer from and clean that pan in order to steam the chard. And when all was said and done, Briana had to run back home because I only have four dinner plates. By the time we finished, the kitchen was sweltering from the sun and the stove, and we all sweated around the table trying not to pass out while eating our hot meal.

I was reminded of Genevieve‘s description of her New Year’s Eve meal last year. If you were to cut Genevieve’s table right where the wine bottle is, that’s how big my dining table is. It was a tight squeeze getting five people in there and that was with the leaf put into the table. Cooking and eating in small spaces is certainly a challenge. But it is possible, if we are patient enough to make it work. When I visited with Mokihana and Pete in May, I was amazed at how tasty our meal was. It was very simple pasta with fresh greens, and a wonderful bread that Mokihana made in her toaster oven pan. I think the trick is lowering our expectations of what constitutes a suitable meal. When I eat alone, I’m fine munching on some carrots and edamame hummus with an apple and almond butter. When other people enter the equation we feel the need to make things more complex. And I’ll admit that even though I don’t love to cook, I do love to eat, and I love to eat with other people. There really is something about breaking bread with friends.

With that said, I’ll end with a few helpful hints that I’ve amassed from my years interacting with food and kitchens.

• Put what you use the most close to you. My spatulas, bottle opener, and whisk get prime real estate.

• Using wall- or ceiling-mounted pot racks are a must for small kitchen living. When you don’t have the luxury of cabinets, the wall is your friend.

• If you can’t compost and you have sufficient freezer space, freeze messy food scraps that would otherwise spend a week rotting in your trash. All my banana peels go straight into bags in my freezer door, which I throw into the garbage on Sunday nights when I take out my trash. The same goes for fridge food that molded before I could get to it. I keep it out of trash purgatory until the last minute to cut down on icky smells (which spread easily in little places).

• Try not to buy more than you can eat. You don’t have room for waste. And if it’s likely to go bad, put it in the open in your fridge so you can see it. Opaque tupperware is no good. How do I know what went into it or when? However, those green foodsaver bags are great if you use them right.

• Use small dishes. I have four full-size dinner plates which I seldom use. For my regular dining habits, I have salad plates and bowls, and I usually use two or three dishes for each meal. Some people would tell you that’s silly and wasteful, but for me, it makes the most sense. Large dishes take up more space. Small dishes can be stacked and nestled and take up less space in a drying rack. Also, I hate having sauces and juices running into the things they weren’t made for (few things bother me more than a soggy roll), so using a bowl for my salad and a little plate for my fish and asparagus is the perfect solution, if a little OCD.

For me, it’s all about knowing how I work. When I still used regular milk occasionally, I gave up buying it and switched to soy, because I knew I would never finish it before it went bad. The same went for cheese, yogurt, sour cream, etc. I also seldom finish a loaf of bread before it molds. Oatmeal, hummus, apples, Tofutti sour cream, frozen veggies, fruit, and fish, canned Amy’s refried beans, etc. are my friends. Having my staples and knowing what I will and won’t use (plus having a kitchen that I like walking into) is the best way for me to cook small.

Amanda is a documentary photographer who just earned her Master’s degree and currently lives in Santa Cruz, Ca. She completed her thesis on the Small Home Movement and hopes to have the project up by the end of the summer on either her long-neglected blog, http://greenaerie.blogspot.com, or her long-neglected photography site, www.aliasgrace.com.

I recently finished reading In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto; an educational and entertaining book.

Pollan’s main message is: Eat whole foods, chow down on lots plants and make eating a social experience. If you want to learn more about the intersections between your health, the food industry, public policy, and “nutritionism,” read Pollan’s book.

So how does this relate to tiny spaces?

Pollan helped me downsize the kitchen by changing my eating habits. By incorporating 15 of Pollan’s eating guidelines into my diet, I’ve been able to decrease waste, save space in the kitchen and focus on cooking simple and easy recipes.

For example, I’ve decreased waste by eating fresh foods that can be composted and visit the local farmer’s market once a week. By eating local and fresh foods, I don’t have to refrigerate much food. Cooking is simple, easy and fast because my meals consist of fresh fruits, vegetables and bread. I’ve found the following food guidelines really helpful for cooking in my small kitchen…

My Food Guidelines for Tiny Spaces

1. Eat mostly plants.

2. Avoid food products that are predominantly processed, unpronounceable, have more than 5 ingredients or include high fructose corn syrup.

3. Avoid products that make health claims.

4. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.

5. Get out of the supermarket and shop at the farmer’s market.

6. You are what you eat (This includes what other animals eat and what is in the soil too).

7. If you have space buy a freezer.

8. Eat like an omnivore. Diversity in diet is a good thing.

Photo by Em

9. Eat well grown food from healthy soil.

10. Get off the Western diet. But don’t look for the “magic bullet in the traditional diet.”

11. Have a glass of wine with dinner.

12. Buy higher quality foods and eat less of them.

13. Choose quality over quantity and good experience over calories.

14. Eat meals and less snacks.

15. Cook and if you can plant a garden.

(Note: rules adopted from Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto)

Comments?

The rules above have helped me create a minimalist kitchen and healthy diet. What cooking strategies have you used in tiny spaces?