toxic smoke exposure and fire danger inherent in cooking over an open flame. They also afford families the luxury of preparing nutritious foods like grains and legumes that require long cooking times and costly, scarce fuel when cooked over flame. Family-sized solar ovens may be compact and lightweight, making them easy to assemble and move, but some solar proponents have bigger dreams.


“Ideally, we’d like to build an


Bruce Joseph of Tucson made this solar cooker from a former television screen. On a TV, the lens - called a fresnel lens - fans the image out so it can be seen from an angle and not just from straight ahead. Flipped over, the lens concentrates sunlight on the attached griddle for cooking


“It all has to do with how we get our energy and how we use our energy,” explained Harte, who is also active in the Southern Arizona Regional Solar Partnership and the Tucson-Pima County Metropolitan Energy Commission. She noted that the United States is far less energy efficient than Japan or Germany. “A lot of people are working hard in a lot of ways to change this by focusing on energy efficiency, energy conservation and the use of renewable energy.” Although cooking by sunbeam


may simply be a creative alternative for many Americans, solar technology promises profound changes in the daily lives of families in countries like Africa, where women and children typically walk miles every day to gather firewood. Solar Cookers International (SCI), a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 to promote solar cooking and water pasteurization around the world, has provided sun-powered ovens to more than 500,000 households worldwide. In addition to enabling families to divert time and energy to other vital chores while the sun does the cooking, SCI’s portable solar ovens eliminate the burn injuries,


oven large enough to feed an entire village,” said Tucson engineer Al Nichols, echoing SCI’s sense of urgency to supply solar cooking technology to people living in Third World countries. Nichols’ first encounter with solar cuisine came at age 12, when his dad experimented with a sheet- metal box erected on sawhorses in the front yard. To the family’s delight, the temperature of the makeshift oven climbed to 300 degrees, a pot of beans was placed inside and, voila


– dinner! Decades later, a visit to the annual Tucson Solar Potluck inspired Nichols to draft his own designs. Nichols’ fifth and largest model to


date already essentially feeds a village on a daily basis. The oven is housed at Milagro Cohousing Community, an eco-friendly neighborhood of 28 passive-solar adobe homes tucked into the Tucson Mountains. Residents consider the hefty sun-powered oven a key feature of their community kitchen – they even cooked a 20-pound turkey in it to celebrate Nichols’ birthday last month. Nichols has cooked plenty of


holiday turkeys in solar ovens, even in winter. Thanksgiving fowl is an easy feat in sunny Tucson, but the short days at Christmas require transfer to his indoor oven. Other favorite recipes include chicken and beef jerky, vegetable stews and his famous three- day solar chili. Want a bite? Drop into the 29th Annual Tucson Solar Potluck and Exhibition – he’s bringing 40 lbs. of solar chili to share.


29th Annual Solar Potluck and Exhibition Saturday, April 16, 2011 Catalina State Park 11570 N. Oracle Road, near Mile Post 81 10:00 am – Sunset Event is FREE, Park entry is $7/car This annual event showcases a range of solar ovens, from homemade to commercial models, as well as speakers, live music, and children’s activities. Best of all, you’re invited to feast on a buffet of sunshine-baked delights. Potluck begins at 5 p.m. Don’t have a solar oven? Bring fresh “solar” fare such as salad or fresh fruit to share and your own dishes, utensils and cloth napkins to help make the potluck a waste-free event. For complete details, see CitizensForSolar.org


www. NaturalTucson.com April 2011 15


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