Sacramento's Solar Cookers International (SCI), a group that helps communities harness the power of the sun to cook food and pasteurize water, will be holding their annual "Shine On" event Wednesday evening. The event will educate SCI's supporters on their successes of the last year and highlight future projects, said the event's coordinator Rene Hamlin.

About 250 people are expected to fill the Sierra 2 Center from 5 to 9 p.m. to listen to speeches by SCI co-founder Dr. Bob Metcalf and Capitol Public Radio food reporter and solar cook Sherry Cole. Those who attend will be able to view cooking demonstrations, eat solar-cooked food and even participate in a silent auction featuring art by Mary Frank, a long-time solar cooker and inscape (abstract) artist.

SCI began in 1987 when Metcalf, a microbiology professor, got together with Beverly Blum and solar cookers Sherry Cole and Barbara Kerr. They put together manuals to enable others to build solar cookers, and shortly afterward, they began manufacturing the cookers themselves.

There are three types of solar cookers that have unique functions, Hamlin said: a box cooker, a parabolic cooker and a panel cooker. A box cooker can bake, a parabolic cooker can fry, and a panel cooker can cook a stew, but most people use all three like a crock pot heater, she added.

"When we're educating and introducing [people] to solar cooking, we talk about it as if it's a crock pot," Hamlin explained. "You can do slow-cooked foods or one-pot meals really easily in the solar cooker."

A benefit of the panel cooker is its portability. Though most other solar cookers use heavier material like glass, wood, and plastic, it uses lightweight materials like cardboard and reflective aluminum and can be folded to the size of a vinyl record.

"In the United States, it's an alternative to using electricity or gas so you can save money," Hamlin said. "Outside the United States in fuel-scarce communities, it's an alternative to cooking over an open fire."

SCI also has an office in Nairobi, Kenya, where they have been working with the Ministry of Water and Irrigation on educating officials on how to test for bacteria like E. coli. They are also working with U.N. officials on building a mobile microbiology lab to be able to test water supplies.

Available for sampling at Shine On will be solar roasted vegetables, vegetarian hot dogs, cakes, cookies and pies. The event is free and the Sierra 2 Center is located at 2791 24th St.

"Sacramento is really nice for solar cooking and has about 200 solar cooking days a year," Hamiln explained. "You need to make sure they are cloudless days, [and] not rainy or too windy."

For more information visit SCI's website, solarcooking.org and The Solar Cooking Archive Wiki.

Photographs credit Solar Cookers International.