Sims 3 Cooking on Community Lots

There's a cheat to enable stoves on community lots:

RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings Off

Or you can download the mod here to have it automatic: https://modthesims.info/d/450059/builder-stuff.html

IMO -It's just too easy to eat a quick meal on a com lot or send them to eat out.

Go and visit someone else's house, use their stove with your own ingredients to save money, which you can get from the community garden, and ignore the owner of the house when they say you're being rude, and put the food in your inventory and go eat it somewhere else.
If you throw a party or you accept someone else's party invitation, the guests bring free food.
Or you can live off of eating raw vegetables from the community lot. They last in your inventory forever. Either a community garden or wild-growing in a park or across the world's landscape. They are always ordinary or just nice quality, so you need to eat 2 or 3 to be full. Eat them straight from your inventory.
If you have the Mooch personality I think that helps with using your neighbour's stove, as well as Inappropriate. The happiness reward of 'Inappropriate but in a good way', which is one of the cheap first happiness rewards, definitely helps.
If gaining the cooking skill is what you're after, then you can read a book at the library. Skill books are contained in the glass, modern-looking shelves, in the library. Sometimes they're in some of the other type-shelves but you need to check them all to see which one's.

Also, in the Journalist career, you can go and review the diner or restaurant, eating there for free.

@DivinylsFan thank you for all those tips!

I often have my sim do some freelance writing but have never signed up for the journalism career.

I have been afraid to eat too many raw vegetables because in Sims 4 it causes the bladder to go red instantly. I did not know that better quality vegetables filled hunger more!

I need to spend more time socializing in Sims 3. Socializing in Sims 4 is not enjoyable for me, so I got used to just making my sims loners and focused on earning aspirations and exploring and collecting. Socializing in Sims 3 is different. I need to start a save that immediately focuses on social so that I can really explore what is different. Your tips on food available while socializing are helpful.

"KevinL5275;c-18305213" wrote:
There's a cheat to enable stoves on community lots:

RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings Off

Or you can download the mod here to have it automatic: https://modthesims.info/d/450059/builder-stuff.html

I tried this cheat and it did not work, but now that I look at it again, I think I used "on" instead of "off". Is there a mod that turns just this ONE cheat on automatically? I already have mods that turn on a couple of the cheats that are included in the mod linked above and I do not want to disrupt anything that works well.

I don't know what the rules of your challenge are, but in a traditional legacy in Sims 2, its perfectly alright to move in as many townies as you like, just not pre-played or pre-homed sims. You can gain their money that way, and boot them back out, or not, but you can't move them back in after that (In a legacy. Do what you want otherwise!). I tried being a halfway house for daggy dorky townies once - befriend and move them in, improve their lives and release them back out. I got attached to a few though. It soon got overcrowded and complicated.

The stove from the store Bistro set works on community lots. So does the pizza oven that comes with Monte Vista, the Bakery oven, and I think also the Teppanyaki grill and the deep fryer.

... and I think microwaves also work - they do work in University dorms.

"PalmArrow;c-18305077" wrote:
The stove from the store Bistro set works on community lots. So does the pizza oven that comes with Monte Vista, the Bakery oven, and I think also the Teppanyaki grill and the deep fryer.

"PalmArrow;c-18305079" wrote:
... and I think microwaves also work - they do work in University dorms.

Thanks! I will try adding all these things!

"KevinL5275;c-18305213" wrote:
There's a cheat to enable stoves on community lots:

RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings Off

Or you can download the mod here to have it automatic: https://modthesims.info/d/450059/builder-stuff.html

Thanks!!!

"Rflong7;c-18305243" wrote:
IMO -It's just too easy to eat a quick meal on a com lot or send them to eat out.

Sometimes for Rags to Riches, I want a sim to be able to cook on a community lot.

I was sending one sim to France just to cook at the basecamp. Can we use basecamp in any way in a non-vacation world to be able to cook?