Today’s job was the kitchen.
Up until now, most of what we’ve built at Járnheim has centred around the main camp and feast area. Today we moved into another part of the clearing and started creating somewhere we can actually prepare, cook and wash up after feeding everyone.
As usual, buying a camping kitchen would have been considerably easier.
So naturally, we decided to build one.
The Prep Table
The first job was a proper preparation table.
It’s a simple, heavy timber table with plenty of room for chopping and preparing food, and it should comfortably take the abuse it’s going to get during camp weekends.
Like the rest of our furniture, I burned the timber rather than leaving it looking new. I really like the contrast it gives against the woodland, and everything is gradually starting to look like it belongs together.
More importantly, we finally have somewhere to prepare dinner that isn’t one of the feast tables.
Making a Sink From a Tree Trunk
The sink has probably been the most interesting part of the kitchen build.
I started with a large section of tree trunk and hollowed the centre out to form the basin.
This involved a mixture of chiselling, carving, grinding and sanding — and considerably more work than I expected when I first looked at the log and thought, that’ll make a good sink.
A drain hole now runs through the bottom and the basin is almost ready for its final finish.
It isn’t perfectly round or perfectly smooth, and I don’t particularly want it to be. You can still see the grain, cracks and shape of the original tree, which is exactly what I wanted.
Once it’s properly sealed, it’ll become our washing-up sink for the camp.
I suspect this may be the first time I’ve ever been genuinely pleased about having somewhere to wash dishes.
The Hob
The other addition today was our cooking hob.
We’ve used sections of tree trunk to create a raised cooking station, which will hold the brazier and give us a second place to cook away from the main hearth.
The central fire will still be used for cauldrons and cooking, but having another cooking point near the prep area should make life considerably easier when we’re feeding a full camp.
It also means the main hearth can remain the social centre of Járnheim rather than somebody having to fight through sixteen people every time they need to check dinner.
A Proper Working Area
What I like most about today’s build is that this isn’t really decoration.
We needed somewhere to prepare food.
We needed somewhere to cook it.
And we definitely needed somewhere to deal with the aftermath.
So we built them.
There are still plenty of smaller jobs to finish around the kitchen, and it’ll look completely different again once all the cooking equipment, utensils and other bits and pieces are in place.
But the basic layout is now there.
Prep. Cook. Wash.
A very simple kitchen beneath the trees.
And hopefully one capable of producing considerably more beef stew.