Cottage Reflections

03 IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE A STAY AT THE FAMILY COTTAGE MEANT "ROUGHING IT" WITHOUT ALL THE CONVENIENCES — AND MORE — OF HOME. Forget the rickety lawn chairs and rusted out barbecue. These days, whether it's cooking from an outdoor kitchen or chilling on a sumptuous, outdoor couch, cottage time is all about comfort. Outdoor kitchens aren't cheap — at the low end they start at about $15,000 — but for those who can afford them, they can transform the whole experience of being "at the lake," says Johan Vroomen, a project manager with Viking Landscaping Inc. "It's kind of like that picture-perfect commercial thing," he said. "You're sitting by the lake, listening to the loons, listening to the water, watching the light dance on it, and then you have your barbecue or the food that you're cooking and it's right there. You can rinse your dishes there, you don't have to have them sitting around. You have your nice counter space, and more than that, it's solid and it fits the look. It makes the whole area better, instead of something that is temporary or plastic. It really adds to the whole experience." Viking offers a variety of modular kit kitchens or can custom-build outdoor kitchens and bars with stone veneer fascias and granite counter- tops. Vroomen said he has built outdoor kitchens with quarry stones for the walls and interior and others using wood for the framing. Whatever the materials, all kitchens are designed to withstand whatever mother nature can throw at them. "The granite countertops themselves are resistant, the quarry stone was made to be outside and with the wooden frame and the veneer ones, you get enough breathing underneath that you don't have moisture rotting the wood," Vroomen said. An outdoor kitchen too ambitious? How about starting with a barbecue upgrade. Over at Luxe Barbeque, manager Evan Fogg says more and more customers are making the switch from gas grills to charcoal or wood pellet grills. "I always tell customers gas adds no flavour to your food." Fogg said. "When you are cooking with a gas grill, the only thing that is seasoning your food or adding flavour to your food would be the spices, the rubs, the sauces that you are putting on the food. "With the charcoal grills and the pellet grill, you are either cooking with charcoal or you are cooking with wood. It's like going to a wood-fired pizza restaurant and the flavour is different than that of an electric pizza oven." The Big Green Egg charcoal grill and smoker and the Traeger wood pellet grill continue to be big sellers this year, Fogg said. The Big Green Egg is a Kamado-style grill and smoker of thick ceramic construction. "It's actually a very archaic form of cooking that comes from Japanese culture, where they are cooking in these kiln like cookers," Fogg said. "You put the charcoal in the bottom and you have a deflector plate and it cooks almost like a convection oven. You are cooking from all sides of the food and it helps keep it extremely moist." The Traeger wood pellet grill is regulated by a thermostat, meaning cooks can set the grill to a desired temperature and not have to worry about checking it all the time. "It's almost a kind of 'set it and forget it' form of cooking," Fogg said. So, dinner's ready: Where are you going to eat it? If sales at Aqua Tech (the exclusive Manitoba supplier of BauKorb outdoor furniture) are any indication, it won't be around a typical dining room set or picnic table. "What we've found lately is that people are moving away from dining sets and more into the conversation sets, so the couches, the loves seats, deep-seating cushioned sofas and chairs like that, more with a coffee table, rather than a dining table," said sales associate Grace Scanlon. "A lot of people have gone away from formal dining in their home and a lot of people eat around their couches, so I think outdoor is a continuation of the living space from indoors and I think that's why people are going toward that." STEP UP YOUR COTTAGE CUISINE B Y D E A N P R I T C H A R D Outdoor cooks are increasingly looking to charcoal or wood pellet grills like the Big Green Egg (bottom) or the Traeger Timberline 850. Photos courtesy Luxe Barbeque

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