Discussion:Make your reservations....

Outdoor Kitchen

It's taken almost two years for this project, but we are almost there. We have started using and enjoying it. It is a blast.

Enjoy the tour. If you want to stop by, send me an e-mail or message here.

Tom

If/when I make the trip from the left coast to the right coast, I'm stopping in for happy hour & dinner.

Congratulations ! That Porter house made me hungry, or was it just a T-Bone?

TexCPA 20:06, 7 September 2010 (CDT)

Can you divulge as to how you are going to deduct the renovations expenditures on your property?

Is that big green thing for client records; or do you have a swimming pool for those?

Tex, they are 1 1/4 Porterhouse's. I no longer do wimpy steaks. I have grilled 2" Porter'?s before and they were great. These also wet-aged in my fridge 25 days and were very tender.

Tom

I think you can recover your investment if you can get the local public television station to give you a cooking show. You have the ideal set-up now.

I got an idea for a show. Are you familiar with Fr. Paul Siel? He'll drive anywhere for food, and he'd be an ideal guest for your first show.

http://www.daybreaktv.org/RegularProgramming/OurDailyBread/WhoisFrPaul.aspx

P.S. The only thing I would add would be colored lights, and 4-5 fire extinguishers.

I don't think he'll need extinguishers, Crow. I'm sure the heavy-duty cover on the green cooking thing will contain any . . . ah, mishaps that might occur.

I did the fighting though, with the permit people. That was a job unto itself. They gave me a very hard time.

Those green cooking "things" Natalie are called "Big Green Eggs". They simply are the best darn grill around. I have a gas grill that double as storage for the thing. It stopped getting used after the large Egg came along. Gas cooking is no longer an option.

And no, I can't burn it down. These are ceramic, the ceiling is too high and why do you think the water is there? Besides, the fire department is a mile away.

Also, if you look in some of the pics, you will also notice an old oil drum that was converted to a smoker. I got it for $25 spent $200 on fixing it up and it burns wood. It also makes great BBQ.

Crow, would you suggest a disco ball as well? Colored lights? My wife would leave me! (Note to self: buy colored lights next time from Lowe's or Home Depot ).

Tom

The older I get the more I enjoy being out in nature.

I started out with a Mary Garden, then I added St. Francis leading his animals around.

I have Snow White (who was a secular humanist), but only five of the dwarfs (agitators).

People throw their art work in my yard now, and it's not unusual I pick up several new animals each week. Also, I'm running over with concrete mushrooms. Somebody stole my Bambi, or he run off with a lady deer (or one of these militant homosexual deers got to him).

The yard is all a man's got left to do his hunting and gathering in, and even then the city wants a hunting permit, and a permit to keep the animals.

Congrats, Tom....shame it is the end of summer but now you can spend winter dreaming of the feasts to come. And don't let your clients see it; they will wonder about the size of their fees!

Very true. If you go hunting anywhere else, you need a license.

David, I designed it so I can cook out all year round. It doesn't look that way, but I can put heaters if I need to and I also have the Big Green Egg Chiminea to keep me warm as well as the grills.

I am disappointed it took so darn long. This guy started in October 2009. He just dawdled. Then there were permit issues, major snowstorms, etc. I am so glad I am down to the wire.

I forgot to mention, can anyone come up with a name for this? I can't think of one and neither can Mrs. O'Connor. So we are having a naming contest.

Tom

Value added services - free meal with each (substantial) tax return, increase fee - depeciate equipment?

Cooking outside in winter is a special treat.

Great kitchen! Of course if my husband got one of these, we'd never cook anything inside anymore.

Well, to get the animal skins, we had to eat the animal first, and that's where the grill came from.

Even today, when we create our little slice of paradise on earth, a weed will pop up, or a bill will come in the mail we thought we had already paid.

The fellow that lives next door to me is a botany professor, and he brings me back a bag of scientific specimens from Columbia each year. I'll put that on the smoker and sit out and look at the stars, and I might get an hours worth of peace before the worm turns and I'm brought back to the worries of this world.

The Story of O?

You can get badly singed by the Big Green Eggs if not careful. I've burnt the hair off my arm a few times and almost set my pants ablaze. However, it will be hard to blow this thing up short of dynamite (Fred, drop the TNT now)!

Outdoor Kitchen

These are updated photos. It shows the exterior covered over.

Tom