Check out this story that aired on 9/7/10 on Kare 11
DULUTH, Minn. -- If the purchase was meant to scream affluence, the rusty '89 Toyota Camry was a poor choice.
"It hadn't been run for six or seven years," explained Dan Dresser about his must-have vehicle. "It was basically a junked car."
Clearly, Dresser wasn't shopping for prestige or style when he rescued the light blue Toyota from the weeds. He and his buddy Jason Wussow had something else cooking - namely, curry chicken on the manifold.
You've heard of efficiency kitchens. Dresser's and Wussow's gets 33 miles per gallon. "It is a kitchen," says Wussow about the Toyota as he unpacks the ingredients for dinner and a two-hour road trip.
Dresser first became aware of the shelf-shaped manifold in the Camry while driving a Toyota Celica several years earlier with the same four cylinder engine. It proved to the perfect cooking surface for whatever meal he and Wussow can fit in a bread pan. The engine, "was designed for this," Dresser insists. "They have to have designed it to do this."
For two-and-a-half years now, Dresser and Wussow have been traveling the countryside in the equivalent of a 2700 pound gas grill.
Not that there haven't been challenges. How does one, after all, steam the rice when the chicken is already on the manifold? Dresser solved that one by running a radiator hose through the Camry's glove compartment. "It's our slow cooker, rice steamer, slash warming oven, in the glove box," states Wussow.
If it seems like a lot of trouble when there are perfectly fine Burger Kings along the way, you're missing the point. "This is a trip. This is an adventure. I don't know. Just have so much more fun along the way," reflects Wussow.
With chicken curry as their air vent incense, Dresser and Wussow head down the road with their dinner bubbling on the engine. The ingredients, you'll find in any grocery store; the oven, in select junkyards.
