CHRIS PEDOTA / THE RECORD Doris Simpson puts hot ashes on the top and bottom of a Dutch Oven to bake an apple cobbler.

Picture the adventure of assembling Thanksgiving dinner two centuries ago.

No double convection ovens, no six-burner industrial cooktops, no stainless steel roasting pans. Just big, heavy pots, a smoky haze and a hungry, temperamental fire needing constant care and feeding, lest it burn your turkey.

Doris Simpson won't have anything to do with that image.

"Watch," she instructs, standing in front of her fireplace. "You get a shovelful of coals," she says, spreading them in a neat circle on the hearth and placing a lidded Dutch oven on top. "Then you get another shovelful of coals," she continues, setting the orange embers on the lid. "And that's how you cook."

In the cast-iron Dutch oven, an apple crisp warmed itself to life. Hanging in the fireplace a kettle of mushroom-barley soup gurgled softly. Nearby, a chicken rests on a spit, waiting for its hour-long roast in front of the fire. Standing in the 1780s kitchen in Simpson's home amid Ringoes' farmland, the harsh, smoky image of Thanksgiving 200 years ago quickly dissolves into an experience so warm and comforting you'll wish you could spend this holiday in front of the fire.

"And if you have a fireplace," Simpson says, "you can."

Simpson is co-author of "The Open-Hearth Cookbook" (Hood, $15) and the chef of the former Muirhead restaurant, which she and her husband, Ed, ran out of their home for 20 years before semi-retiring to a life of bottled sauces, salad dressings and fruit butters under the same name. But when the mood strikes, she steps down into the oldest room in their house, carefully builds a small fire and gives her cache of cast-iron cookware a workout.

On New Year's Eve, while revelry carries on in adjoining rooms, guests visit the original kitchen for bowls of soup Simpson cooks over the fire. On her son's birthday, she entertains his family with a full dinner from the hearth. Her granddaughters especially appreciate the experience of a centuries-old lifestyle that focused on family togetherness, she said.

"The whole family would be right here at the fire," Simpson said. "The fire had -- and did -- everything you could ever want. It affords you light. It affords you warmth. It affords you food."

Using your fireplace for Thanksgiving -- or any meal -- need not be time-consuming, challenging or costly to someone with basic knowledge of food and fire, Simpson said. "I always say you can cook everything except a souffle." (Most cookware doesn't come with tall-enough sides to accommodate the rising batter.)

So on Thanksgiving, you can cook a turkey?

Simpson points to a tin box that sits in front of the fire, capturing its heat. "Right there," she says. You can also broil or grill other meats using a grate set above the coals.

Can you boil water?

"Sure," she says, gesturing to the teakettle hanging from a cast-iron crane to the side of the fire.

What about pasta?

She pauses. "You can cook pasta," she says, with caution in her voice. "But don't push it."

OK, so boiling, cooking, stirring and draining pasta isn't practical in a fireplace. But many other recipes are -- so many, in fact, that only about a third of Simpson's book (co-written with Suzanne Goldenson) is set aside for the recipes she developed. The first 94 pages of this manifesto take you slowly and deliberately through techniques and history of broiling, baking, roasting, frying and stewing. Among the highlights: