Feb 23
Cooking Like a Pioneer
Or- discovering the thrill of boiling water on a wood burning stove.
My husband and I are renovating an old French farmhouse. I won’t lie, it’s not always easy. But there are things that make French country living worth the effort. Like, this winter I found a second hand wood burning stove that some neighbors were selling. The grandma of the family had cooked on it for decades. They kindly shared tips on how it worked (thank goodness!) And faces lit up as they reminisced about how Grandma would slow-simmer stew on the back corner. Making the house smell amazing on Sundays. Getting to know this behemoth of a stove has been interesting. First of all, kudos to my husband for getting it in the house! It is amazingly heavy. Once we got it in place, figuring out how to get a fire going and heat the room was easy enough. Getting it to actually cook things? Hello learning curve! It seems the challenge is getting it hot enough. So you can laugh all you want, but when I got a pot of water to boil -after staring at it for ages- I felt actual glee! And when that water cooked potatoes? Complete satisfaction. I have a new found appreciation for the patience it took to cook back when these stoves were the norm. Now I just need to tackle baking in the oven!
