OUTDOOR KITCHENS
11 July 2008
“ROUGHING IT… San Diego Style!”
I suppose people in the northeastern United States, where they actually have weather, get tired of hearing about the stunningly pleasant weather we have most of the time in San Diego, but it gives us something else to do with our time when our professional sports teams stink it up, which is surprisingly much of the time.
And one of the things we like to do when we’re not watching the home team get clubbed again is a backyard picnic. Actually, those backyard picnics are about as far into “the woods,” as I ever venture, which is why I’ve developed such an interest for all things backyard. And, really, if everything you need to cook up a masterpiece is right there, and still outside, do you really have to haul it up the mountainside? The folks at Electrolux certainly don’t think so.
Their Electrolux outdoor kitchen is something they promote as “not just a grill.” They like to think of it as a natural gas outdoor kitchen, and looking at this baby with its five main infrared burners and side burner, it’s hard to argue with them. You can use these burners to make separate cooking zones and prepare an entire meal at the same time. And they also have a rotisserie and smoking box. At $4700, it’s a little pricey, but this and a sink are about all you’re ever going to need.
Well, actually, for those who want a true outdoor kitchen, as opposed to the BBQ that is about it for most of us, weatherproof cabinetry has to be the way to go. Yeah, I know, we keep saying we don’t have weather in San Diego, but it rains like heck in the winter months, and when it’s not raining there’s a hot sun to contend with, especially with any kind of wooden cabinetry.
Really, no matter where you live, if you build it outdoors, you need to build it to hold up to the weather. Having built a rather elaborate yard of my own (I’ve described it at some length on my private blog), I can tell you that redwood doesn’t always work as well people think it does. And that brings us to a firm I can’t help wishing I’d known back then, namely Werever Outdoor Kitchens (that’s one of their kitchens at the top of this blog).
It feels almost like heresy for one who loves wood as much as I do to talk about a company that produces a product of solid marine-grade polymer, but I’ve repaired enough dry rot damage to wish I’d sought this product out in the first place. Because their cabinets are not wood, they won’t absorb water, which means they won’t delaminate, for two reasons, really, the first being that they were never laminated in the first place—they’re solid polymer! But, even so, it is fair to say that plywood does not do as well outdoors as one might like, unless it’s protected well with a marine finish. But that, in turn, means re-protecting it on a regular basis. Werever, by way of distinct contrast, sounds as though it is well named.
For those who are in the market for an elaborate outdoor kitchen, Werever might be a company worth considering. A granite countertop, for those who are going to make that elaborate of an outdoor kitchen will hold up regardless, and will provide a fair amount of protection to the underlying cabinetry, but if I were installing something like that for myself, I would want something for the cabinetry that required absolutely no maintenance of any kind whatsoever. And if it came with an automatic beer bottle opener, so much the better. No sense in roughing it!
Joseph
No comments yet