Perfecting campfire cooking

The very first day we bought the land of course there was 6 inches of snow, but we wanted to "live" on the Land which included making food. I don't remember exactly what we tried to cook, but I remember that we burnt the crap out of whatever it was. Next chance we had we bought a gas grill to make life easier. The grill has served us well grilling veggies, breads, and animals of all kinds and even heating up water and side dishes on its little burner. After that first campfire cooking experience we were scarred and only used the campfire to toast many a perfect marshmallow using awesome telescoping rotatable forks. This weekend and last we spent several hours around the campfire on both Friday and Saturday nights and a little during the day too. We collected wood of all sizes, started fires with dry conditions and wet, we stoked the fire high and kept it going at a slow burn. Then, just as we were about to start cooking hamburgers, veggie dogs, and corn for David Smith's family and ourselves around 7:30 Saturday evening, the gas on the grill ran out. Uh oh. Hardware store was closed. Thankfully David had a small coleman stove and the hamburgers went on there. But it was too small. We looked at the campfire. It was time to step it up. I got some rocks and placed them around the already burning fire at just the right angle and placed an inherited round grill grate over the rocks. I knew from that one previous experience and a fair amount of research that I didn't really want a fire, I wanted slow burning coals. In my previous grilling experience the only way to make coals if from the charcoal that comes in black briquettes from a bag and is doused with lighter fluid. But I also had the image of those late night slow burning embers and that's what I tried to emulate. So I pushed half of the already started fire under the grill grate and there were some coals. And lo and behold it worked!!! The foil wrapped sweet corn was very forgiving, but it was definitely cooked, even having some carmelization in certain areas. I did it!!! I cooked on real fire!!! Two and a half years after that first attempt and I'm a mountain person now! Now time to perfect the craft. Over the next day or so, I realized I could keep those coals going with inch diameter short sticks which are luckily in huge abundance on the Land. We toasted bagels the next morning just to prove that real cooking could actually be done. I still think we'll fill up the propane tank at the next possible opportunity, but the possibilities for camping in different fire pits on the Land without the grill have just opened up. I can't wait to go back.