But I digress... Rick Palkovic's blog

Time for Solar Cooking!

Okay, since I've been encouraged to blog about anything I want to here, I'm going to indulge in a little shameless self-promotion. I've just co-authored a technical book. But, it's not about software or computers. It's a cookbook, actually, devoted to solar cooking. And since summer has returned to the Northern Hemisphere, it's time to get out those solar ovens.

In case you haven't heard of solar cooking, it involves putting raw food in a dark pot, putting the pot into some sort of transparent container (like a plastic bag or an insulated box with a glass window), and setting it out in the sun. After a couple of hours, the food is cooked. You can also pasteurize water this way.

I first heard about solar cooking when I lived in Palo Alto, CA. Seemed interesting, but would it really work? I didn't actually try it until I moved out to Davis, CA, in the sunny Central Valley. Here, the sun pours down out of a cloudless sky all summer, and it just didn't seem right to waste it by heating up the house cooking in the kitchen or smogging up the air grilling outdoors.

I salvaged a Sun workstation monitor shipping box (believe me, children, those things were big in the days of CRTs) and turned it into a solar cooker. It's been 15 years, and I've been cooking with these things ever since. So, do the planet a favor and have some fun with solar cooking yourself!

Here are some links:

Solar Cookers International (non-profit doing important work in the Third World): http://solarcookers.org/

Solar Cooking Archive (great resource): http://www.solarcooking.org/

Cooking with Sunshine (cheesy page about my book): http://www.cookingwithsunshine.com/

Village Homes, Davis (where I live): http://www.villagehomesdavis.org