For Americans, the barbecue grill is the indisputed king of appliances for outdoor cooking. We also have the pickup trucks and SUVs required to transport them. But in Japan, where car camping is growing in popularity, vehicles are relatively tiny. Japanese outdoor goods brand Babacho meets this market with their portable Takibi Stand.

It's essentially four pieces of 16mm rebar and some metal fittings.

The two long pieces are driven into the ground, and the fittings are used to suspend the two shorter bars horizontally and parallel to each other, forming a minimal surface on which to rest skillets. In the demonstration photos, an equally portable stilt-style firepit is used as the heat source. And conveniently, utensils can be hung from the ends of the bars.

The height of the horizontals can be set as you like, for instance to accommodate a hanging cauldron.

Obviously the set-up requires some patience and finesse. While the spacing of the vertical poles needn't be precise, I imagine you'd need to mallet them into the ground fairly plumb, or at least parallel to each other, for the set-up to work. And determining how far into the ground to set them would require some judgment.

Lastly, yes, I know it's not an actual grill on which you can lay meat; it's a support surface for skillets and such. But I find the thinking behind it interesting. Here's a machine-translated description by the designer (sadly unnamed, Japanese companies don't tend to credit individual achievements):

I used to cook on a separate BBQ grill, but since it required so much gear, I decided on a more reductive approach.

Here was my thinking for cooking over this type of fire:

- "Is it possible to cook by hanging or placing something over it?"

- "I wish I could cook two things at the same time!"

With the Takibi Stand, I tried to give form to those ideas. I don't have any sense of style, but I made it with practicality in mind. When I first set it up at a campsite, it looked "right." It's just self-satisfaction. (lol)