OUTDOOR KITCHENS
22 July 2008
“When You’re Here, You’re Family!”
I have written about Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet™ before, and will probably do so again because they have a lot of innovative products for outdoor dining that I find particularly interesting. Maybe it’s because, with all I did for our back yard, I just keep having this thought that it could have been an elaborate outdoor kitchen instead. And with the regret we always have when the train has irrevocably left the station, we find ourselves wishing we’d waited for another train instead. All you can then do, I suppose, is remark on how nice it is to be going where you’re going, rather than fixating on where you wish you were going—if I’ve not stretched that metaphor too far.
Be that as it may, while I cannot say I am unhappy with the yard I eventually made for us (I talked about it yesterday, and also at length on my own private blog), there’s just an occasional twinge of what might have been. If you’ve ever watched a movie where the whole extended family is gathered around a table like the one at the top of this blog, there’s just such a feeling of, well, family that is hard to get in any other setting. Maybe I’ll just make a big table!
But seriously, an outdoor kitchen has a lot to recommend it, and really, when you think about it, an awful lot of us have such a thing. We just don’t think of it that way. Got a BBQ and a picnic table? You’ve got an outdoor kitchen. Now it’s just a matter of how elaborate you want it to be, and that brings us back to Kalamazoo.
These people have an entire line of outdoor kitchens that can be put together in any number of ways. They even have a hybrid grill that allows one to cook with charcoal, wood, and gas—all at the same time! One of the reasons I have always stayed away from gas is the flavors one only gets with charcoal, but if I just had a grill like the Kalamazoo 900 Series Hybrid Grill—almost sounds like some kind of space craft, huh?—but, oh, the things I could cook on such a grill! Now, if I can just get the wife to buy that!
The other slick thing—no, let me rephrase that—another slick thing (face it, these people are loaded with outdoor kitchen concepts) is their line of outdoor kitchen cabinets made of stainless steel. To make sure their cabinets hold up to the weather, every door and drawer opening is surrounded with a seamless rain gutter, thereby creating a weather-tight vault. They’ve even included stainless steel legs for their cabinets, because anything short of that is just going to eventually rust away.
Nothing in this world could get me to re-do our back yard, but if I were starting on the project today, I would most definitely be thinking in terms of a backyard kitchen, and Kalamazoo is a cutting-edge company I would undoubtedly be looking into.
Joseph
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