The first version of our camper kitchen was a box of things. Everything we owned went in, we dug through it at every meal, and cooking took twenty minutes longer than it should have. What follows is the version we arrived at after a year, which is mostly a story about taking things out.
The principle: one standing spot
Everything used while cooking has to be reachable without moving your feet. It sounds fussy and it is the single change that made the biggest difference. In a space this size, every step means shuffling past someone, opening a door that blocks a drawer, or putting something down where it will get knocked over.
So: stove in the middle, pan and utensils in the drawer directly below, spices and oil on the shelf directly above, water within arm’s reach. Anything that does not fit that circle lives elsewhere and is fetched before you start.
What we carry
One pan and one pot. A 24 cm frying pan with a lid and a 2 litre pot. The lid fits both. We used to carry three pans and used the same one every time.
Two knives. A chef’s knife and a paring knife, in a magnetic block screwed to the inside of a cupboard door. Loose knives in a drawer are how you cut yourself reaching for a spoon on a slope.
Nesting everything else. Bowls inside bowls, mugs inside mugs. The rule is that nothing goes in the cupboard unless something else fits inside or on top of it.
Spices in one small tin. Six jars, refilled from a bigger stash in a cupboard. A full spice rack is a rattling noise you listen to for four hours a day.
The two things we got wrong
A fixed sink cover we could not put down anywhere. It has to have a home. We now use a cutting board that slots into the gap beside the fridge, which means covering the sink also produces the surface you were missing.
Too little dry storage for open packets. Half a bag of pasta, an opened coffee, a heel of bread — this is most of the food you actually have at any moment, and none of it fits neatly. Two stacking containers with clip lids solved it, and should have been the first thing we bought.
What we would do differently from the start
Cook in it for a week before drilling any holes. Every fitting we chose on paper was in the wrong place, and every one we chose after a trip has stayed put.