COOKING WITH WOOD

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You can use a wide variety of cookware with a cookstove, but blest is cast iron (see "Care and Feeding of Cast Iran" ). Nothing absorbs and spreads the heat as well or holds it longer... perfect for the nature of fire and cookstoves. Ironware has a forgiving nature; it widens our margin of error and gives us our best chance at success.

My friend, Hoy, told me recently how he, as a nine-year-old child cooking for 11, would fill a two-foot-long iron griddle end to end with batter, then rotate it every five minutes or so to keep the heat even and constant. This way, neither end of the griddle was ever too near car too far from the fire long enough to get too hot or too cold, allowing for maximum pancake production.

The same technique can and should be used for baking and roasting. The side of the oven closest to the firebox will be the hottest, so you'll want to turn bread and other baked dishes around at least once and sometimes more (depending on the required cooking time) to ensure even heating.

One especially nice feature of the cookstove is that you can let the fire die out and the residual heat will continue to slow-cook a dish for hours, while you're out cutting wood or taking a walk on a crisp autumn day.

Despite the common modern misconception, cookstoves do not have to be slow, inefficient or backward. Used with the proper fuel wood and methods, they can be every bit as practical as contemporary gas car electric ranges. And, as an added plus, if a natural (or unnatural) disaster knocks your power out, a cookstove will keep your kitchen warm and put hot food cm the table.

Give the wood cookstove a chance, or rather, give yourself a chance with a cookstove. It takes some time to develop the confidence and expertise necessary to raise wood cooking from kitchen chore to culinary art, but with practice, you'll get there. And with one taste, you'll be glad you did.

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