I always find it calming. The Dutch oven before the fire. You set the embers over and under and then the magic happens. When cooking meat in the Dutch oven, I have started using a digital thermometer that works remotely — probe inside the Dutch oven connected to the digital output device. The advantage of monitoring the interior temperature is that it takes skill out of the cooking method. You can understand what is happening inside the cooking pot without disturbing the embers by removing the lid. This French Dutch oven, called a daubière, is from the mid seventeenth-century. It is made of bell metal, so when you hold the lid by its handle and strike it, it makes a pleasing sound.