After a dark and stormy night, imagine waking to the dappled spots of morning sunlight playing tag on the roof of your tent, while a gentle breeze wafts in, pregnant with the delicious scent of a thawing, freeze-dried, TV breakfast or a piping-hot bowl of trail-mix porridge, emanating from the bowels of your very own wilderness microwave. Yes, you too can rough it in style and bathe in the admiration and envy of fellow woodsmen every time you tantalizingly slowly unveil this handsome, high-tech appliance from your backpack or saddlebag.

Some specs: Bearing the Bonfire Boys’ seal of approval, the 20 lb, carbon-aluminum alloy unit has three main components, a steam turbine, a power generator and the 0.125 cu ft microwave oven, all packaged in an imitation pine bark outer shell. The oven features a coo coo clock alarm (when your time is up), our patented Anti-Fridge-Lite (turns on when the door is closed) and a cookbooklet with 700 thumbnails of yummy outdoor repasts, from a freshly-picked cranberry and chanterelle, cup casserole, to a landed and filleted fish, wine-poached in a jiffy, or a poached chicken egg, boiled in a snap.

To use, just start a blazing fire with a quarter-cord of wood or a jumbo bag of charcoal, top off the boiler from the creek, and a half hour later, you’ll impress assembled campers by brewing a cup of tea in minutes flat.
-- FarmerJohn, Jul 25 2003

(?) Portable Microwave Oven http://www.idsa.org...99/winners/oven.htm
Concept design, no generator. [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) Portable Microwave http://seenontv-pro...oducts/5414991.html
Uses an inverter to work off a car battery. It at least sounds like the whole thing weighs less than 20-lb. [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

A wood-fired steam turbine which generates electricity to power a microwave oven? Ridiculous. Have a freshly-microwaved croissant.
-- angel, Jul 25 2003


Ba-DING! (+)
-- FloridaManatee, Jul 25 2003


I think the reward is that it's so heavy that you just decide to stay home.
-- DeathNinja, Jul 25 2003


If you've got a fire and boiler, the microwave is just so much excess yuppie baggage. Sorry.
-- DrCurry, Jul 25 2003


[DrCurry] re: link, But then you'd have to lug a 30 lb car battery around.
-- grip, Jul 25 2003


And here I thought critics were going to hit on my "a thawing, freeze-dried" or "egg, boiled in a snap".
-- FarmerJohn, Jul 25 2003


Any chance you could also plug in a fondue pot? +
-- Worldgineer, Jul 25 2003


First of all I would like to deliver a fresh croissant to Farmer John for making me laugh out loud.

Now on to business. I say you could have the Car Conversion Kit, that allows you to run the microwave from your car in case you don't have firewood handy. Here's what you do: Open the hood of the car. Place the conversion kit on the engine. Put the car into neutral and rev the engine. As it heats up, you will eventually have enough heat to boil water. The steam then powers the turbine. The turbine generates electricity. The elecricity runs the microwave.

Also, you could have the Electric Starter Kit, which would be a device that allows you to ignite your wood pile for the microwave without ever striking a match ... it would be at the flip of a button. To use it, you must first charge the capacitors which are powered by a fold-out solar cell pack (folds into a backpack). It should take less than 2 hours of charge time to make several sparks.

Finally, I propose a Stationary Bike Conversion Kit that allows you to run the microwave on electricity generated from a stationary bike that you ride. The bike also folds up into a small 10 pound suitcase for easy transport.
-- Doodler, Jul 25 2003


I dunno, I think I need to see a sketch to be able to visualize this completely. (+)
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 26 2003


microwave + camping = NOT CAMPING.
-- emilysusan, Jul 29 2003


“Camp is popularity plus vulgarity plus innocence” (Indra Jahalani).
-- FarmerJohn, Jul 29 2003



random, halfbakery