Recipe

For posterity, here is the recipe we used when making grilled cheese on the griddle at Burning Man.  Most times we would make 8 sandwiches at a time, repeating each step 8 times before moving on.  This usually required two people, one person manning the grill / spatula, and other person manning ingredients (butter, bread, and cheese).

1. Heat the griddle on low-medium heat until butter melts but doesn't burn away quickly.
2. Put on 1 tablespoon of butter.  Cover that with a slice of Wonderbread (or whatever you find to replace that in our new post-Wonderbread world), and smear it around to soak up the butter.
3. Quickly top with 2 thick slices of Tilamook medium cheddar.
4. Drop on a second slice of bread and wait about 3 minutes for the bread to brown.
5. Lift the sandwich with a spatula, drop another tablespoon of butter on the griddle, and smear.
6. Wait 1 minute for initial toasting, then chop down the center with a sharp spatula edge.
7. Wait another minute or two until golden brown, then scoop it up and drop it on a piece of foil for a hippy to stumble away with into the desert.

Leaving you with some photos...

So friends posted some photos from the event. I took shockingly few. I'm always happy if there is a single decent shot of my from burning man- I lucked out and got a few this year. So, sportsfans, I leave you with the sampling of grilled cheese shots.

An awesome shot. My friend was on top of Pier2 and took a picture of the grilled cheese riot from the top . You can barely make out the cart in the throng of people.

A more civilized night service shot. Clearly from earlier in the week as I am wearing one of my costumes and someone is actually sitting at the table.

I know I said it before- but I'll say it just one more time. This was a great way to spend my burn. It's inspired me to learn more, do more and generally try harder. See you guys next year. Come hungry, cause I'm gonna make you a little something to eat.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

We are back to the real world now. What a wild ride.

We arrived on the playa late Sunday night- the gate line and will call lines were a complete and utter chaotic disaster- six hours later we arrive at our campsite at 4 and H, threw up our tents and shade structures by the 3am moonlight and all snuggled straight in to bed. Even playa arrival excitement could not overcome that exhaustion.

Monday morning I awoke, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I prepped the cart for a few hours, the boys finished the chandelier, minor repairs, reorganization etc and around noon scampered down to playa info to get our permit. The Nevada Health worker was a very nice woman, who agreed to come inspect us straight away after her shift. So back to camp we ran to do last minute prep- filling sanitizer bottles, hanging the paper towels on the cart just so, etc etc. But our inspection time came and went with no inspector- I wandered the street looking for her- asked around, left messages at large landmarks- but alas, nothing. I chalked this up to a standard burner time experience and decided to move on with my day.

Cheese service, as we began to call it, was an eye opener. First and foremost- it was awesome. The surprised shock, the emerging joy on all of your faces when I found you and asked you if you wanted a grilled cheese made every moment of prep, building, etc totally worth it. This was easily the most fun I have ever had at a burn. So thank you. Thank you for the 1000 hugs. The gifts. The drinks. The cheesy lines. I'll even thank the hippy pervert who bit me and humped my leg out by Pier 2. Burning man is not Burning Man without you weirdos.

 It was very quickly apparent that our original plan of one sandwich at a time with one person at the table was never ever going to happen. The siren call of cheese meant that the moment we set up we had at least 10 people in line. We gave up on sitting people down, we started serving half sandwiches instead of wholes and developed a system to make 16 perfect servings at a time. We rapidly burned through supplies and by Tuesday we were sending out emergency text messages for more. Imaging receiving this text from your friends on the playa: "We need 400 slices of cheese, 30 loaves of white bread and 16 pounds of butter" Our campmates rock and despite some extended costco shenanigans, they got the job done.

There were other changes. I had really not thought enough about playa weather in my costumes. They were both too hot and too cold and were rapidly abandoned in favor of my more standard burner gear. The only nod to the 50's that remained was the victory rolls in my hair. That apron I spent a week making.. yup, I wore that once. For an hour. Over some ruffled undies and a corset. Oh well.

I'm fairly sure we did some level of cheese service every day- honestly it's all a blur though. In the end we estimate we made about 450 whole sandwiches, that were served mainly as halves. Somewhere between 750 and 1000 of you ate grilled cheese with us.

Round about Friday the Nevada health people circled by again. I was rallied out of my post pancake stupor by "CARRIE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS HERE FOR YOU!" My friends are quite sure that they are hilarious. I had a moment of panic, as in reality by the end of cheese service the cart is destroyed- it takes about 1 to 2 hours to get everything cleaned and presentable again. And we usually spend that 1 to 2 hours right before we leave. So I was about to be inspected by the health department on a rolling hunk of metal with cheese and butter smeared all over it. Thankfully inspection was not a big deal though. We just talked about all the guidelines, I answered the questions correctly, she looked at the cart from afar (thankfully not up close) and by the end we were 100% official. They even gave me a tiny rubber duckie.

As soon as we find all of our cameras, and our brain cells start to fire again, I'll post the final shots.

Rest assured cheese junkies, this is not the last you have heard from me. We will be back. And we will be better, faster, bigger and stronger. No one is more hooked on serving you a cheese sandwich than me.

Emergency Upgrades

Tonight was our first batch of test sandwiches.  They were delicious, but use of the griddle on top of the wagon revealed a last minute problem.  The piping hot griddle needs to be stored, but everything inside the wagon is plastic.  Only one solution... an 11pm emergency ride to TechShop.  Luckily 2 friends from Atlanta, Jeff and Ross were visiting, and Jeff volunteered as stoker (the guy in the back).

A few quick steel cuts and MIG welds later, and there's a new small compartment on the inside of the upper half of the wagon for hot griddles.

The final major piece on the wagon was the chandelier mount.  Yes, chandelier.  Here it is being formed by the most dangerous object in TechShop, the acetylene torch.

There were a few small minor explosions in the tip of the #8 rosebud torch (the biggest one) when I tried dialing in the flame.  Luckily a TechShop master welder walked by and told me it was an inherently crappy and dangerous tip, and got me setup with the cutting torch for much easier bends.

And here it is attached in all it's epic bent steel glory.  There's a twist at the base to get it centered over the cart.  It sockets into a sleeve mounted to the top of the frame for daytime removal.

Countdown to cheese

Holy crap sports fans, it's game time. We are leaving for the burn in TWO days.

Sorry updates have been sparse in the past couple of days, but we have been busting our buns getting stuff done. For instance, I made 100 burritos this week....

But rest assured we are getting cart stuff done. So here is a quick update for your fans of grilled cheese (Hi Mom!). I'm amazed that we've had almost a thousand page views! I know that's not a lot by internet viral standards, but considering I made this so my mom and a few friends could follow along, it's impressive. 

Fabrication on the cart is done. Well its 95% done. It's damn close enough. Tweaking will continue as time allows.  

Decor of the table has begun. The big debate of today is to placemat:

or not to placemat...(sorry that's upside down- no time to fix it!). All of these things will be epoxied in place so the table is always "set".  Note yet another change in table cloth occurred- the paint on the wagon came out a bit orange, so back to the fabric store I went. I would love to have a fake napkin on their to complete the picture, but I need something that looks like napkin, but can be vigorously cleaned so it doesn't become a harbor for germs and dust. Perhaps more vinyl....

I am debating if I really want to glue my delightfully cheesy kissing surfers salt and pepper shakers..... 

They make me smile, and I would be uber sad if I lost them. It would be nice if people could actually use them.. perhaps they can just get set out for each guest. 

God this apartment looks like a theme camp blew up in it. No time for cleaning! BACK TO WORK. 

Sweet Jesus! It's actually coming together!

I've recently gotten some time to work on the lighting portion of the wagon. I have spent some time playing with microcontrollers so I decided to go one step down the food chain and play with ICs. I'm taking some 555s to trigger cycling in an RC circuit. The oscilloscope is displaying the voltage in the capacitor over time. I'm going to build circuits with different adjustable resistors so the timing is slightly off between them. Each one will power a different color in some RGB leds. It should give me a nice color cycle.

The wavy lines means it's working.

Alcohol is the solution to all problems.

Moving from the breadboard to a prototyping board.

Close up of the prototyping board with RC circuit components mounted. 

I also joined Chris last Sunday for some metal work. Chris has been busting his ass all week and it shows. We finished the last piece of sheet metal, came up with the initial cooler layout and did a fair amount of powder coat work.

Cutting the initial hole to access the cooler. Note how rough the hole is at the lower right hand side.

Really wishing we had used the water cutter to make the hole at this point.

The sand blasting "protective" glove had gaping holes in the thumb and forefinger. Considering this was Chris' hand I figured duct tape was an acceptable repair mechanism.

Dear God, please let me stop sanding this aluminum...

The first step to powder coat aluminum is to sand blast it. In theory this greatly increases the surface area and removes most blemishes. Since we never actually tried powder coating without this step this might be the metal shop version of a snipe hunt.

2,000 volts + paint = awesome sauce[0].

[0] For definitions of awesome sauce which involve a nice even coat of pigment.

Putting the metal in the oven. I wish I had a picture of all the melted rubber in this oven where people used their shoes to keep the door from searing their elbows.

First batch done! It actually looks professional as well.

Stay tuned for pictures of the assembled wagon.

Sammies are Metal

There's been tons of progress on the metal of the Sammie Wagon.  Here's some shots...

As Hunter says, when parts don't quite fit, we can just "fix it in post".  Well, here's post.  I'm about to hit this door with a hammer many times to make it the right size.  The wood is to make sure it bends where I want instead of deforming into a lump.

The initial placement of the hinges allowed for a full 270 degree door open, but was a little ugly in how far out it pushed the door when closed.  To fix this, I ground all the hinges off (they were welded onto the frame).

After grinding them off, I mounted them on the doors, and clamped them in their final homes for a bit of welding.

In the end, mission accomplished:

Sheet metal can be pointy, so if spend you enough time abusing it, it will eventually abuse you.

Luckily, I have the tools to repair this construction issue available in the shop.

I need some corner molding to cover the 3-way joint on the top of the wagon, so I gave welding them myself a shot using the 20 guage aluminum the skin is made out of.  Turns out this is one of the hardest things to do in all of welding, and something people show off with to prove their ultimate welding mastery on youtube.  Here's the rig I made to mount the aluminum on for welding, and my failed attempt.  I got points from TechShop attendees for at least having plenty of "ambition".

The skin of the cart is almost fully fabricated, so it's time for powder coating.  The final colors are kitschtastic Ford Light Blue for the sides, and a lovely red for the counter top.  To powder coat parts, you stick the powder on with an electrically charged powder sprayer, then stick them in this huge oven to melt the powder  into a sexy, shiny, protective coat.

Here's the 2 test panels.  The blue includes a layer of clear, with some glow in the dark additive.  No idea if this will actually work on the playa, but I can confirm seeing the panel in the dark of the TechShop bathroom after a few seconds of fluorescent charging.

Finally, victims of the Sammie Wagon need somewhere to sit, and I thought I'd have to fabricate a mount to hold their seat.  Turns out, we are geniuses, and the removable table already accomodates the chair.  This shot also shows the new mounting bars for the grill, and the future home of the grill cheese access top panel.

Soon, final powder coated skin on the cart...