Cooking in the Bathroom

I never thought that a microwave, a hot plate, a toaster oven, a bar fridge and a bathroom sink could comprise the perfect components of a gourmet kitchen, until necessity proved me wrong. When I moved into a basement studio without a real kitchen, the plan was that I would live there a few nights a week by myself. My partner was moving full-time to our home in the Alexander Valley north of San Francisco. I'd keep my job in the City and the studio would be my crash pad on the occasion when I couldn't suffer the long commute.

After a few unexpected turns of my partner's career track we had to adjust that plan. On weekends, we enjoy Ridgeback Mountain, where our 100 lb ridgebacks run freely through our Syrah vineyard and I enjoy cooking on a Thermador cooktop. During the week, on the other hand, the four of us, Peter, the ridgebacks, and me are now sharing a 270 square foot studio apartment...without a kitchen. We could be lazy (and poor) and go out for dinner every night, but then I'd miss out on my favorite stress reliever. Nothing relaxes me more after a hard day at work than cooking a great meal -- chopping and stirring while sipping a glass of red wine.

We had only one option: to set up cooking facilities in the studio's bathroom. The sink is a little tight for rinsing vegetables, but the stand-up shower works just fine (thank you Kramer). The BTUs are non-existent on my hot plate, but it can still boil water just fine. And, I've come to a deep appreciation of the sublime versatility of the toaster oven. Three months into this experiment, I ocasionally still fantasize that I'm cooking gourmet meals in a Parisian chambre de bonne. But what I'm really doing is

Cooking in the Bathroom.