Eating Jell-O with Chopsticks

https://granolashotgun.com/2019/05/27/eating-jell-o-with-chopsticks/

by oftenwrong • 7 years ago

179 118 7 years ago

granolashotgun.com

oftenwrong• 7 years ago

I see this as hacking the overbearing regulation of the built environment.

More about the "stealth triplex": https://granolashotgun.com/2017/07/17/the-stealth-triplex/

Building an outdoor kitchen setup: https://granolashotgun.com/2018/05/08/the-mangiapocalypse/

A garden hose attached to a spigot and a galvanized bucket work wonders as an outdoor sink. Camp soap made for outdoor use is garden friendly and nontoxic so waste water can be used to irrigate fruit trees. I hasten to mention that an outdoor sink plumbed with a pipe would have set off a cascade of government regulations and prohibitions. But a garden hose and a bucket? No problem. Why ask for trouble with the authorities?

Building a backyard cottage: https://granolashotgun.com/2017/06/14/the-bitter-suite/

I attempted to build a granny cottage in the back half acre behind the main house. I hired a local architect who walked me through the legal parameters. Then I decided to do the rational thing instead. Nothing. The numbers didn’t add up. It wasn’t even close. So I reverse engineered what was legal as-of-right without permits, fees, or inspections. 120 square feet, no more than 12 feet tall, no electricity or plumbing. Full stop.

AWildC182• 7 years ago

I know a guy who worked a purchasing project for garden hoses. They're made out of so much low grade regrind I would never use them for drinking/cooking...

Also, they breed bacteria like crazy when left in the sun.

coryrc5• 7 years ago

Any suggestion on what would be a safe substitute?

chrisdhal• 7 years ago

As a kid growing up in the 1970s drinking out of the garden hose was considered normal. We survived.

technofiend• 7 years ago

My father's addition to his cabin has a one inch gap between the two buildings and a door. Technically allowed in his little Connecticut town as long as it's under a certain size. Same with the sewing studio he created for my step mother. Technically correct is the cheapest kind of correct.

deckar013• 7 years ago

This kind of zoning is pretty much unenforceable. There is no good way to tell the difference between guests and customers. Some people have noisy guests that bother their neighbors. Some people make loud noises cutting wood and doing personal projects with heavy machinery in their garage. Money exchanging hands is not the problem.

Spooky233• 7 years ago

Lol.

No way. Depending on the town, you'll either piss someone off, or a busybody will rat you out to the codes compliance people. Once that happens, they'll investigate and you're done.

When they figure out that you have guests, it's closed and the complainer is directed to do a noise complaint. If they figure out it's a business, you get cited.

dsfyu404ed3• 7 years ago

No way. Depending on the town, you'll either piss someone off, or a busybody will rat you out to the codes compliance people. Once that happens, they'll investigate and you're done.

For most of HN that is true because most of HN lives in wealthy cities or suburbs that have enough tax income that they can have a big enough government to the point where spending man hours chasing down that kind of stuff is important. Poor cities don't have the resources to go investigate busybody crap.

deckar013• 7 years ago

The Department's highest priority for investigation and resolution of reported violations are health and safety-related. If evidence exists that a violation of Planning Code may have occurred, the Enforcement Planner sends a notice to the responsible party... High service demands can routinely cause cases to remain open for some time. These cases usually involve violations that do not constitute a significant impact.

https://sfplanning.org/resource/file-a-complaint

dsfyu404ed3• 7 years ago

Some people make loud noises cutting wood and doing personal projects with heavy machinery in their garage. Money exchanging hands is not the problem.

I assure you there are plenty of people who think that loud noises, odors and "unsightly projects" are an issue even if no money changes hands. These people have far less leverage over tenants than they do over property owners so they seek to ban tenants

The zoning you speak of is enforceable enough. It doesn't need to be enforceable 100%, just enough to make the risk/reward not worth it. Remember, a large part of the busybodies motivation is "neighborhood character" (or some other shit like that). They don't care if you break the rules so long as you do so in a way they find agreeable. They want the power of arbitrary enforcement so they can screw you if you have tenants that throw loud parties (or whatever). It just so happens that it's easier to get draconian punishments attached to the zoning code than it is to get them attached to the petty crap the busybodies care about so they get rough proxies for the stuff they care about prohibited via the zoning code.

recursive• 7 years ago

Yes. That's the point being made.

orclev• 7 years ago

I'm pretty sure that was the point he was trying to make. The excuse often made for why rental properties aren't allowed is that tenants are often noisy or cause other problems. He was just pointing out that that can be a problem for owners as well, so whether it's a tenant or a owner that's being noisy is immaterial.

sokoloff• 7 years ago

These people have far less leverage over tenants than they do over property owners so they seek to ban tenants

What leverage do they have over a property owner?

dec0dedab0de• 7 years ago

Money exchanging hands is not the problem.

Actually, I think that is the whole problem. Many of these regulations exist because the local government officials want to extract as much value as they can for themselves and their friends.

0xffff22• 7 years ago

I find the author's dismissiveness towards kitchen space interesting. Granted I cook a lot, but are there really so many people that cook so little that they would have no problem not having a stove at all?

nkrisc• 7 years ago

In many places, especially places with a climate like Hawaii, you just cook outdoors. A grill or a small gas stove is probably sufficient, supplemented with rice and whatever else you can cook on a hot plate.

spraak4• 7 years ago

I live in Hawai'i and confirm that many people cook on simple gas stoves and grill.

ZeroFries• 7 years ago

I'm currently staying in an AirBnB with two induction hot-plates and a microwave and can cook 90% of the meals I do in a regular kitchen.

asark• 7 years ago

I cook a fair bit and all I really need to get by is two gas burners and maybe a toaster oven. In a pinch one burner'd go a long way, with a couple extra gadgets to help (rice cooker, say). I'd lose out on a lot of baking, which'd suck, but I'm not into much oven stuff anyway, personally. Four (plus) burners and a full-size oven's kinda overkill, I'd seriously consider dropping to separate two-burner and half-height oven built ins to save space for more storage, counterspace, and other appliances if that weren't a lot more expensive than just buying a full-size normal stove.

gwbas1c2• 7 years ago

You could get a fancy convection microwave. (Basically, a microwave that can also be a small oven.)

They take about 20 minutes to heat up on 120v, but they're big enough to bake a cake or a sheet of cookies.

xvedejas2• 7 years ago

You do have to give up on kitchen space. Expect to be disappointed. Pretty much anywhere with single-family zoning, it's going to be illegal to have multiple kitchens. What exactly defines a kitchen varies, but typically always forbids a stove.

bluGill5• 7 years ago

A second kitchen is becoming common. The trend started 30 years ago with a bar, and has moved to a full kitchen. The second kitchen is for entertaining and thus near the entertainment room (often in the basement). While I rarely use our second kitchen, there was the one time when I couldn't fit everything in the oven and having two more in the basement made it easier.

coryrc5• 7 years ago

In Seattle, it's the sink that's killer.

closetohome4• 7 years ago

I took the burners out of my stove and put a cutting board over it for extra counter space. I use the oven as storage.

Food trucks and takeout get the job done.

dmurray• 7 years ago

How much counter space do you need in the kitchen if you never cook?

snazz2• 7 years ago

This is probably unwanted advice that you’ve heard before (I’m also assuming that you don’t cook as a result of inexperience, not just because you don’t want to), but I would recommend learning to cook for yourself at least a few times a week. It’s better for your health and your wallet, besides being a useful skill. You can make thousands of meals only knowing how to boil water.

padobson• 7 years ago

With the pervasiveness of Uber Eats, Door Dash, et al, I'm starting to think there should be an AWS for food.

Imagine some sort of central, industrial-scale kitchen that makes dirt-cheap prepared meals and uses the aforementioned services delivers them to your house, hot, at meal time.

Could economies of scale drive the cost below $5/meal? $2?

If we can obviate server rooms in office buildings around the world, what would it do to make the kitchen an extravagance rather than a necessity?

Or maybe the laundry room is the right target for obsolescence. Most cities already have industrial scale laundries for hotels. Could Uber and Lyft partner with them to eliminate those two giant appliances in our homes, and let us have the space back for our ham radios and stamp collections?

tonyedgecombe• 7 years ago

I’d never trust a corporation like Amazon to cook my food.

Kliment2• 7 years ago

You see this a lot in SE Asia where there's a lot of housing with no useable kitchens. Because eating out becomes a necessity, there's lots of supply and variety and prices are super low. You don't need economies of scale, just for it to become a necessity/staple rather than a luxury.

0xffff22• 7 years ago

There are already a handful of laundry services operating in the bay area. They're all roughly an order of magnitude more expensive than doing it myself even as a renter.

Likewise, the overwhelming cost of food delivery services is in the "service" part. Even if you could make the meal for $2, I would still end up paying $10 for a $2 meal, and while it definitely possible to make a nutritious and reasonably palatable meal for $2, it's never going to compare to the $10 meal I can get just by walking down the block to my local taqueria, much less what I can make myself.

Qworg• 7 years ago

Also, "dark kitchens" that support various food delivery services exist: https://disruptionhub.com/rise-of-the-dark-kitchen/

kelnos2• 7 years ago

Could economies of scale drive the cost below $5/meal? $2?

Even if you have minimum wage employees, you're still paying people $15/hour to make the food, and $15/hour to deliver it. How many servings can a cook make in an hour? How many deliveries can a driver do in an hour?

Ten deliveries an hour gets you down to $1.50 per delivery. In some areas and times of day where deliveries line up just right, they can maybe do more, but if it's hot food, there's a limit as to how much the driver can carry at once. If it's all point-to-point back and forth between the kitchen and destinations, forget it.

Let's say the cook can make 30 servings in an hour. So that's $2 just to pay for labor already. That doesn't factor in costs for ingredients, kitchen space, cooking equipment, and maintenance for that. It doesn't account for marketing. It doesn't account for the R&D required to build and maintain the ordering app/website, or for server costs.

Speaking of space requirements, this is actually really problematic from a cost perspective. You need the kitchen to be within a reasonable delivery time from your customers. For a dense city, you're probably good for volume of orders, but you'll probably need to locate your kitchen inside the city limits, where real estate can be expensive. For a suburb, no matter where you put your kitchen you run the risk of not having enough delivery orders within a reasonable distance.

A company with other revenue could certainly sell this as a sort of loss leader, but I can't imagine a way to do this for $2 per meal, and probably not even $5 per meal. Hell, if I walk to my local grocery and buy ingredients for a basic meal, I'd be hard pressed to walk out of there spending less than $5. Economies of scale could reduce the cost of materials, but the labor and infra costs would surpass the savings.

docker_up• 7 years ago

It already exists, called Cloud Kitchens. There are a lot of take out restaurants that really don't need a storefront, so why not consolidsate their operations in a few locations around the city and deliver quickly instead?

bookofjoe• 7 years ago

Dark Kitchens: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20021592

jxub• 7 years ago

The real advantage of cooking at home is that you don't have to pay yourself any salary, which is the majority of the cost in the case of razor thin margins that eventually will be reached in economies of scale.

elindbe22• 7 years ago

I've often thought about that. Right now Grubhub and the like are oriented towards restaurant food: e.g. somewhat fancy, with lots of options, etc. Why not just cook industrial size portions of a few items and sell for cheap? You see this in India where they make massive pots of curry to feed thousands of people.

The main obstacles seem to be delivery and people's desire for choice. You might be able to get the price of a fried rice down to $2-4 if you make it on industrial scale. But time customizing it (choice of meats, removing ingredients for allergies, providing extra sauce, etc) and getting it to the customer is more costly because it requires individualized service.

Meal pal is currently trying to do something like this by partnering with restaurants to create on cheap dish per day. It works to some extent but the customer has to pick up the food and only gets on option per restaurant.

gwbas1c2• 7 years ago

I regularly cook for my family of four, and I very rarely use more than two burners. I could probably do most of our cooking with a two-burner hotplate, toaster oven, microwave, and rice cooker.

This just means that the mini-bar needs good wiring. Assuming there's an attic, crawl space, basement, ect, this is trivial.

(I still prefer my real kitchen, but that doesn't mean I need it to cook for a family of four, or even to cook for myself if I was still single.)

alistairSH4• 7 years ago

Married empty-nester here. We have a standard suburban kitchen (4-burner stovetop over an over, microwave hung above, toaster oven in the corner, and an American-Sized fridge).

The fridge is half-full most of the time. I rarely use more than 1 burner at a time, 2 if it's the holidays and I'm cooking for family. I could easily replace the main oven with a slightly larger toaster oven or convection microwave.

Yes, doing so would prevent me from cooking a turkey. I do that once every 3-4 years.

When we visit Europe, we usually Airbnb in a small cottage or flat. Kitchens are always "tiny" by US standards. We never feel like it's a problem.

For renting the US, I'd gladly forgo a full kitchen to save $200+/month on rent.

truebosko• 7 years ago

Look at any old Italian kitchen and you'll be amazed how much can be accomplished with next to no space.

One of my favourite food bloggers has a fairly small kitchen. Not tiny by any standards, but smaller than typical suburban Instagram food blogger types.

She seems to do a lot of her cooking and prep on a hot place and ikea cart. Fairly impressive and what I strive for in my own kitchen

https://smittenkitchen.com/2008/11/how-to-max-out-your-tiny-...

turtlebits• 7 years ago

My parents have a huge Viking gas range/hood, and they often prefer to use a small Ikea induction cooker for their meals.

I'm in the process planning a small cabin, and probably will go with the same thing. Ikea has an inexpensive "mini-kitchen" that I'll probably just add an induction cooker to.

zrobotics4• 7 years ago

Perhaps investigate used RV ranges--they can be had very reasonably, work on LP or natural gas, and have an oven. Old RVs can be had cheaply, and most of the appliances (especially stove amd fridge) also work great for cabins. A friend here in WY went that route for a small (700 sqft) cabin- found a free RV that needed extensive work, stripped out kitchen appliances, cabinets & bathroom fixtures and scrapped the rest. He was able to recycle the trailer frame into a trailer, so the waste fit into a single dumpster.

spraak4• 7 years ago

I don't like the dismissiveness towards cooking or having kitchen space, but I replaced my stove with two Instant Pots and I'm really satisfied. I don't stir fry (oil free cooking) - just rotate cooking soups, grains and beans.

nickpsecurity2• 7 years ago

And if you want frying, maybe an Instapot and air fryer. A guy I know whose always cooking steaks and stuff says he barely uses oven after buying an air fryer. I don't know what brand, though.

@ all

Anyone know a brand of air fryer that lasts through lots of use with a reasonable price? I might try one if they don't break quickly.

dredmorbius• 7 years ago

Hot plate, slow cooker, electric grill, and toaster oven can cover a multitude of sins.

closetohome4• 7 years ago

This must be really specific to NH, because I don't find any of the laws or problems he talks about familiar.

SECProto• 7 years ago

I have experience with half a dozen cities around Canada, and they all have similar zoning issues to those described.

amanaplanacanal2• 7 years ago

Do you not have zoning in your city? Or are you just not familiar with what is allowed in various zones?

strommen2• 7 years ago

Abolish single family zoning.

It's terrible for the planet, terrible for economic and racial equity, and terrible for our mental health.

polemic• 7 years ago

Add more zoning restrictions then?

strommen2• 7 years ago

No. Less restrictions.

Currently every area of a city is "zoned" for what is allowed to get built there. "Single family home" (SFH) zoning is the most common, and the strictest: it requires every building to be a house meant for one family. No multi-family housing (even duplexes) and no commercial use (even neighborhood stores or home businesses).

This NYTimes articles discusses some of the issues and how Minneapolis is changing its policies. This should be done everywhere:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/us/minneapolis-single-fam...

learc833• 7 years ago

I interpreted that as remove zoning that only allows single family homes

ars• 7 years ago

and terrible for our mental health.

If I had to live in a multi family home I would completely go insane. I don't know about you, but I need space in order to function.

People are not livestock, to be packed in as tightly as possible.

That said, the types of multi family houses in this article are fine by me - they have lots of space around them.

HarryHirsch2• 7 years ago

In the past and in different countries they solved the space problem with proper architecture and with public parks. Look at mietskasernen in Berlin!

alistairSH4• 7 years ago

Generally, the change would allow single-family homes. But it would not REQUIRE single-family homes.

A typical development pattern might be something like... - all single family homes to start - area gets popular (property value goes up), a few SFH are replaced with duplex or small apartments - area gets more popular, more SFH removed, mid-rise apartments begin to appear, small-scale retail appears

Etc.

Of course, this requires that NIBMYs aren't allowed to control other people's property. And the zoning and codes that do exist are enforced so you don't end up with a SFH next to a gas station.

nikanj• 7 years ago

If I had to commute for an hour both ways, I would go completely insane. I don't know about you, but I need to live near where I work, meet friends, and have hobbies.

People are not livestock, to be ferried from place to place as market forces see fit.

That said, we can't have both. Either we have density, or we have everything spread out with long commutes.

Personally, I support Japanese style zoning, and letting people buy the kind of property they wish to live in.

mewse-hn• 7 years ago

I'm with you and I will probably never have a roommate again because of negative experiences.

However, I've always felt something is deeply wrong with the way zoning works right now. I live in a suburb type residential neighbourhood and the nearest corner store is a 20 minute walk away -- that seems silly. At some point we strictly divided residential and commercial and we all suffer because of it.

Zoning is also one of the prime factors in the car culture problem that is eating up the world's resources and boiling the frog called humanity.

Zarel• 7 years ago

This is like saying "I think abortion should be illegal because I don't want an abortion".

The comment you're replying to isn't saying to abolish single family homes, it's saying to abolish single family zoning.

alistairSH4• 7 years ago

Instead of abolishing single-family zoning completely, I would suggest adopting an approach more like the Japanese. They use "stacked" zoning for most uses, instead of the American-style single-use zoning. Their zoning is also done at a national level, instead of community level.

https://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zoni...

https://cdn-images.postach.io/0bd25fcc-8ab1-40fe-8eef-bcafaa...

frenchie4111• 7 years ago

This is an interesting post. I don't think the title does it justice, I wouldn't have opened it if I wasn't sitting on the toilet and the all the other links were purple at the time.

dang• 7 years ago

You're right about the title, but when a substantive post like this one has a whimsical title, we prefer to leave it intact. By whimsical I mean indirect and playful and not using any obvious internet tricks. Leaving it is respectful to the author, and I think it's good for the HN front page not to reveal itself completely without a bit of effort.

puijyyuittr• 7 years ago

Yeah, especially because eating jello with chopsticks isn’t even that difficult. It’s just like eating tofu with chopsticks.

sxates3• 7 years ago

I'm currently in construction on the lower level of my house in Oakland, which will be split in half and include an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) that we'll be able to rent out.

There are two ways of doing this in Oakland, and presumably most places - the Legal proper way, and the not-legal way. Most seem to be the latter.

But we wanted to do things right. Oakland has a housing shortage and we have more square feet than we need, and we were renovating the house anyway. And according to the city, they're trying to encourage ADU's to help with that housing shortage, so we went that way.

But that means we're subject to a whole new set of zoning and construction regulations. Originally I wanted to keep a (locking) interior door between the main house and the ADU so we had the flexibility of having it as a guest room or literal mother-in-law suite if we weren't renting it. Zoning shot that down - ADU is required to be completely separate space.

Oh and that 'separate space' is quite literal. Separate HVAC, separate electrical, separate sewer plumbing to the lateral with separate cleanout, and 1-hour fire rated separation on shared walls and ceilings.

Some of that makes sense and I'd want to do anyway, but it means a simple 400sq. ft. 1 bedroom ADU in an existing building is about a $100k buildout.

The previous owner rented the downstairs space as it was - not legal, no real separation from the main house, shared everything. That was pretty much free for her.

I wonder if there's a middle ground somewhere. A 'legal' way to dense up our housing but without the great expense of rebuilding it from the inside out first. This seems like something that we'll be seeing a lot more of in the future, but I can't imagine most people will want to spend what I'm spending to do it 'legally'.

mieseratte• 7 years ago

Oh and that 'separate space' is quite literal. Separate HVAC, separate electrical, separate sewer plumbing to the lateral with separate cleanout, and 1-hour fire rated separation on shared walls and ceilings.

Sounds like you wanted to rent out a bedroom, not an apartment.

spraak4• 7 years ago

Åhh yeah, you noticed a subtle but important detail

sxates3• 7 years ago

Well I think when it's part of a main house there's probably a middle ground. I've got a separate exterior entry, building out a full kitchen, bathroom, etc. Not trying to just rent a room. But I think we'd do well to find ways to permit spaces like this that are "lower end" or somewhat integrated with the main house.

JudgeWapner2• 7 years ago

All these regulations seem like regulatory capture for current landlords and an indirect tax imposed by the contractor industry in general. Just another barrier to keep people who don't have money from competing with those who do.

rayiner• 7 years ago

I don’t understand how you Californians put up with so much government. It’s not even good government. It’s not like you can point to great public services and whatnot to make up for it.

spraak4• 7 years ago

It seems like the "In Soviet Russia" jokes could now be applied to California (in the sense of regulations, I'm not claiming that California abuses humm rights as much as Soviet Russia did)

scarmig• 7 years ago

Most places have ridiculous zoning regulations.

It's only so painful in California because there aren't many convenient places left for greenfield development.

sxates3• 7 years ago

Well the upside is that the city actually allows this at all. If I were still living in Texas, land of freedom, this would be completely forbidden in most cities.

HarryHirsch2• 7 years ago

If you are renting to a roommate and the guy knocks over a candle or falls asleep smoking in his bedroom you notice straightaway and can escape or try and put out the fire. But if you live next to a studio apartment and the fellow sets his kitchen on fire you may not notice until it's too late for you. Proper fireproofing is absolutely essential in multitenant units. There is nothing wrong with Oakland insisting on proper code, especially after that warehouse fire a few years back.

NYC seems a bit more permissive towards not-so-legal landlords, and every few months the NY Post reports a building fire with really avoidable casualties. From circumstances you suspect out-of-code rentals.

euske• 7 years ago

I'm not quite following the article. Why can't people build a duplex like that today? Which part of it is illegal? I think it has something to do with a zoning law, but I'm not very familiar with the concept. (I live in Tokyo.)

robertnealan• 7 years ago

Zoning restrictions are far more restrictive in the United States than in a city like Tokyo, where the government has largely only enacted laws preventing specific cases that would be considered very harmful (opening a heavy industrial businesses in a residential neighborhood for instance).

In most of the US most land in smaller cities are zoned for single family housing only. This often means you can only build a house for one family (no duplexes) with arbitrary restrictions on a variety of other things (minimum lot sizes, maximum house sizes relative to lot size, required setbacks from property lines to the house, etc).

In the event you are able to build a du/triplex it's rare you'd be able to convert any part of it for business use unless the land was already zoned for multi-use, where they allow mixing of residential and commercial uses.

peterwwillis• 7 years ago

The zoning laws are just ridiculous. It shouldn't be illegal to live in a tiny house, or to have mixed-use dwellings, or build more dense, efficient spaces that cost less. There's a good reason why these laws came into practice, but there's also good reason to make exceptions. But it's also impossible to change them without a couple million dollars and an army of lawyers.

ww520• 7 years ago

For my old house, the previous owner had built out the basement unit beautifully, with a full bath, large full bedroom, and large living room, and 9' feet ceiling that made it look like a normal living space. When I bought the place, I was thrived. It's like a separate unit. But I checked the city's plan, the build-out was not in the plan, so it was built illegally.

Years later when I sold it, I decided to go through the process to bring it up to code. It was a painful and onerous process. Dealing with the city planning department and to be compliant with the regular building code plus the city's own petty codes made me wish I didn't start the process. At various stages of the process, I was at the point of fuck-it and just gave up. Finally got it done after 9 months and extra money. I can certainly understand why people just do it without following the regulation.

Eating Jell-O with Chopsticks

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