More Lessons in Simple Living and High Thinking
Cooking Over a Wood Stove

I never wanted to cook. It was an “artsy” thing, and I was an “engineer.” But after my divorce I was forced into the kitchen, because although I didn’t want to cook, I did like to eat nice food. Going out to restaurants was not a consideration because of my religious principles, so armed with Yamuna’s “never-fail” cookbook (Lord Krishna’s Vegetarian Cuisine – most highly recommended) I took my stand at the stove.

It was a frightful affair because I was not clear on the concept. It was my impression that everything had to go into the pot in exactly the proper order and amount called for, and if that was not possible then it was doomed to failure. I struggled for a number of years like that. You couldn’t say that I was a cook. I was more of a chemist. I did have laboratory experience as a chemist back in my college days and my cooking took on a similar approach. Although I wasn’t that good of a chemist I was a much better cook when I dutifully followed instructions.

It was fate that taught me how to cook more than anything else. One eventful day I happened to run out a spice that was called for! Oh heavens! What was I going to do? Imagine what a delightful discovery it was to find out that it didn’t make that much of a difference! Armed with this experience, as time went on I even began to experiment, substituting various ingredients to learn how it would alter the finished product.

Even though I was learning to improvise and substitute I leaned on that cookbook for help for many years. I can’t remember exactly how I was weaned from it, but my earliest recollection of doing without it was some 15 years after I ventured into the kitchen. Finally I’ve graduated from the school of cooking experience and I never even refer to a cookbook unless I want to make something specific that I haven’t yet made.

Now here we are in lovely village of Ryabuinak and the only stove is the fire box that also heats the house. Where is the high and low switch? How does one navigate the thing? Can it be too hot? These were some questions that I first wondered about. Fortunately at this point in time I am not so timid about trying new things, so we set out on our first adventure to cook eggplant and potatoes.

A word to the wise: here is one very important tip I received from a friend for cooking over an open fire. If you take the time to coat the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of clay, the clay becomes black and not your pot. And it’s very easy to wash off. If you don’t do this however, your pot will become impossibly black and stay that way. I keep a small tin of moistened clay on hand for the job.

The stove is made with a number of concentric rings that nest on each other making openings of various sizes. You remove the number of rings required to match the diameter of your pot. It was interesting to learn that the rings exactly correspond to the pot sizes! Nice. Somebody with experience is making the pots or the stove, or both!

For a nice high heat its best to build up a bed of coals and then on top of that add some fresh wood to get the flames going. With this arrangement things get going right away. If you need to “turn down the heat” all you do is remove the pan from the opening and set it a third or a half onto the stove top, which is cooler since it is not directly above the flame. Or you can also move it to another part of the stove. The further the distance from the open flames the cooler the stove is. Although I first had some trepidation about it, I’ve found cooking on this stove to be quite nice. There is lots of room for pots and there is a complete variety of temperatures. As soon as one prep is ready to simmer it is moved off of the central spot and then the next dish is begun with the high heat.

Now after cooking we make a nice attractive dish and offer it to the Lord. This is the most essential part of preparing a great meal. Food that is offered first for sacrifice becomes “prasadam,” or sanctified food. It has a very special quality about it that other foods cannot match. In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Sri Krishna instructs us: “all that you do, all that you eat, all that you offer as well as give away, should be done as an offering unto Me.” When the result of our cooking is offered to the Lord for His pleasure the entire kitchen activity becomes spiritualized. This is bhakti yoga, or the yoga of devotion. Such spiritualized activity, however normal, or even mundane, can bring the happiness and satisfaction we all desire. Not because of the activity, but because of the love that imbues it. In this way we learn to live in love. By following the ways of bhakti we can truly be happy even while living a simple life.

One result of kitchen work is hands blackened from tending the fire box. Another is very delicious food. I don’t know what it is but food cooked over a wood fire is somehow much more delicious. Although I was first apprehensive about this aspect of simple life, I think I am going to like it verymuch!