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by bardo 🍁
2021-03-06
campfire cooking

Suburban Fire Craft (Part One)

Suburban Fire Craft (Part One)
2021-03-06
campfire cooking

I have been making big plans for how I’m going to spend another summer of limited travel and quasi-lockdown in my little suburban backyard.

See, for at least five years we’ve had a small fire bowl set up in our yard. It has served the purpose of gathering friends and family around some burning logs, roasting some marshmallows on warm summer evenings, and sipping cold beers under the autumn twinkle of a clear night and the glow of a warm backyard fire.

We even kindled it up this last New Years Eve, sipped hot chocolate in the winter chill and ceremonially burned our 2020 calendar. Good riddance!

But after five years, and yet another long cold winter in the harsh Canadian elements, our trusty portable firepit is probably due for a replacement.

I’m looking at this an an opportunity rather than a loss.

The current bowl is simple and meant to be nothing more than a safe way to have a small fire. We’ve cooked hot dogs or made s’mores with it, but anything more substantial would be pushing it’s functional limits. It’s just not meant to cook over, for example.

As a kind of “Saturday Projects” series, and as summer approaches, I’ve got a few big ideas about how I’m going to bring some of my wilderness adventure to my suburban backyard. First on the to-do list is a series I’m calling “suburban firecraft” where I’ll be upgrading my fire bowl situation with a new set-up that will allow us to build safe, useful, and (of course) legal bylaw-compliant fires right out our back door.

I’ll be figuring out a way to not only cook marshmallows, but make use of some of our cast iron to cook campfire meals and test out some recipes before we take them out to the wilderness.

How would you build a backyard fire pit: a portable fire bowl that can be moved and stored or a permanent fire pit?

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backyard adventures campfire cooking with fire saturday projects suburban firecraft suburban life

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about

It’s about more than just food.

It’s about a mindset and a perspective on living a full, active and interesting life.

The Cast Iron Guy blog heated up in January 2021 as a journal of uncomplicated things, life lived, and a mindset that reflects the philosophical practicality of well-seasoned cast iron frying pan: enduring, simple, down-to-earth & extremely useful.

I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about things that interest me, including the artistic inspiration I get outdoors, travel, gear, growing and cooking food, fire craft, suburban and nature trails, running, and (of course) the clever and curious ways I find to use my many pieces of cast iron cookware.

On This Day

  • Suburban Fire Craft (Part One)
    2021-03-06

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