"Hey, speaking of methane, did you know that you can collect your garbage and
human wastes in a 55 gallon drum, attach an inner tube to one of the fittings to trap
the gas, and use that gas for your cooking? Why don't you give that a try and give
me a report?"
You are being really, really silly, Del, if you think I'm going to recycle to that extent. I would rather eat all my meals at Taco Bell forever (and it is not one of my favorite fast-food places)!! My spartan kitchen started out several years ago because I thought I was leaving the country, and got tired of spending more money on things I wouldn't be taking with me. Then I noticed that I could do pretty much everything I wanted to without many accouterments. Finally I even found a cookbook, "The Southern Cake Book", with hundreds of cakes that are all mixed by hand, without an electric mixer, old southern recipes from before electricity was available. The simplicity of living that way does appeal to me, but it is an after-the-fact discovery in the kitchen appliance sense.
I do think kitchens should be very sensual, however. A beautiful kitchen, warm and bright and filled with old bottle collections and art and LIVING houseplants (hanging baskets of silk geraniums for Janice) and stained glass and crystals making rainbows (or whatever you find beautiful--it might be different from mine) and a table where everyone whiles away their time is the very heart of a house. In the end I think what you have in the drawers and cupboards waiting to assist you is much less important than how a kitchen FEELS.
Your experience in the snow sounds just dreadful. Isn't there actually a kind of mental illness that you can get from living like that? I have forgotten what it is called. It sounds like alcohol consumption might easily get a little out of hand too!!
Incidentally, will your New Mexico homes have fireplaces of some kind? I am really unfamiliar with steel-frame houses. Do they create design problems that wood-frame houses do not present? |
