WTF is this about?
Here's my early retirement dream: jettison most of my posessions, buy a 40-foot sailboat, and sail the Carribean and the Mediterranean with my beautiful wife.
Since cooking and sailing are my passions, for the last several years I've been working on paring down my needs for kitchen appliances and gadgets, while still creating great food. The journey has been enlightening.
I went from small (or no) kitchens in college, working up to a modern, large kitchen full of useless crap in a big house, then finally down to a small gally kitchen in an empty-nester condo. Along the way, I learned there are many "conveniences" that aren't. I found that, with experience, I can make better food fewer gadgets and with very little extra investment in time.
Here's an example: remember the automatic pasta machines that were all the rage in the 90's? Everybody got them as wedding presents, used them twice and then garage-saled them. Give me a fork, a rolling pin and a knife and I'll show you how to make fresh pasta in less than a half an hour. OK, I'll need a cup of flour, an egg and a pot of boiling water too.
Simple food, simple tools, and a kitchen range. Or a campfire. Or a hotplate. Or a propane stove. We'll work it out along the way.