RECIPES

Papas arrugadas from the Canary Islands: salty, wrinkled-skin potatoes cooked in one pan over the fire, served with mojo rojo and mojo verde for dipping.

Black beans simmered in a smoky tomato base, buried in melting cheese, and torched to a golden crust — all cooked in one cast iron pan over the fire.

A camping shortcut for real cassoulet: Toulouse sausage, confit duck, and cannellini beans simmered in one pot over the fire in about 35 minutes.

A three-ingredient camp pizza cooked low and slow under a lid in a cast iron pan or dutch oven — crisp on the bottom, no oven required, ready in about twenty minutes over the fire.

A cast iron Dutch oven cornbread with a golden, crackling crust — the camp bread I make for chili nights, wherever the fire happens to be.

A three-hour campfire chili built the way Manon insists it should be: seared sirloin and ground beef, a dried ancho-and-cumin spice mix ground at home, and a long, slow simmer over the coals.

A slow-fermented, no-knead bread mixed days ahead and baked in a cast iron dutch oven buried in charcoal briquettes — the crust cracks, the crumb is open, and the method works over a campfire, a backyard fire pit, or your kitchen oven.

Not a recipe. The sound a cold can makes at the exact moment the preparation is finished and the evening turns from work into sitting by the fire.

Fire grilled fish five ways, plus the cast iron trout with bacon and caramelized onions I have eaten for breakfast since childhood.

From-scratch pancake batter cooked in a cast iron pan over the fire, plus the rules that keep pancakes from sticking — and rather more pancake history than you asked for.