Sun for Your Supper

When I spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle recently about "green grilling," the reporter expressed some skepticism about the idea of cooking with a solar oven. Admittedly, the concept does sound a little wacky. But the paper's food editors were apparently willing to give it a whirl, buying their own Sun Oven (pictured) and devoting four pages to the joys of off-the-grid cooking, including tantalizing recipes (with instructions for solar and conventional preparation) for shrimp and lemon skewers, buttermilk cornbread, and a baby beet salad.

A new title from Stackpole Books, Solar Cooking for Home and Camp, offers even more recipes, along with author Linda Frederick Yaffe's instructions for making your own box cooker out of cardboard and aluminum foil. Seriously. It doesn't even look that hard. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm in favor of any weekend project that results in eating. If you've done any solar cooking, let me know what you think and what your favorite recipes are.