easiest way to cook with wood?

You don't need to support your pot above the fire. It's nice to be able to do that, but not necessary at all. When I am cooking on an open fire, I just push it right into the fire. I either push it right at the edge or put it right on top of the coals, depending on current structure of the fire. Just shove it in there in whatever way seems best. Here is a photo my friend took boiling some water as an example: http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1290/bigsurtrip088.jpg Something to grab the hot pot handles with is essential for this.
There are some neat ways to suspend a fire above the fire using sticks. I even saw one video where a guy carved a bunch of notches so he could easily adjust the pot height up and down. This requires a little bit of time to set up though. If you are interested, I can search down those videos.
A wind block is not needed for a fire either, unless you are just starting it. The wind will add oxygen to the fire and help it to burn faster/hotter.

Wait, are you talking about using a wood stove or an open fire? I just realized that my previous statements wouldn't apply if you are using a wood stove.

If you are talking about a open fire, here in Kalifornia I use a couple rocks and build a small fire between them. Back in the day, you used to see this alot where fires were allowed and stoves were pretty new, at least to me. I only thought Coleman made camping stoves. Have not done this in years now though, a stove is easy and I can spend more time fishing or whatever and not have to gather firewood and go home more smelly.
Duane

Yeah, true, I could just cut the rubber grip holders on the arms of my Evernew Ti 1.3L pot off and not have to worry about them melting off. Much easier. The thing with the stakes that I was talking about would be in lieu of a wood stove. And the body blocking is good for trying to keep the flame/heat on the pot moreso when it is really windy. Just a thermal efficiency thing.

Having used a Bushbuddy for some years now, as well as a few other light weight wood stoves, I'd say a good it wood stove is the easiest way to cook with wood.

Using the Bushbuddy as the example, I've got just two pieces to the stove, it packs into the pot, uses a scant minimum of small sticks and twigs, boils pretty quickly, there's no fire scar and leaves only a tiny bit of ash. Plus I don't have to make sure all three it stakes are at the right distance from each other and the same height – I just have to find a small reasonably level bit of bare ground or rock. Or picnic table!

I have an Emberlit UL Mini and it's one of the best pieces of gear I have.

It's the LIGHTEST stove I could find and works really well.

– uses VERY little fuel. Just a handful of sticks.

– you can have a fire ANYWHERE

– does not damage the ground

– infinite fuel

Now that I"m a hammock camper I don't really have access to fire pits so this is a big win.

Takes about 10-20 minutes to boil 1L of water.

+1 for the Emberlit UL. Folds up small, great design.

I am really not going to buy a BushBuddy at $120. The Emberlit UL mini stove looks nice but I already have something in a Vargo Hexagon wood stove that will do me similar. The things is for either of these stoves it is hard to starrt them with their confined spaces if you use a firestarter like a light my fire. Thanks.

lighting a woodstove from the top makes using a firesteel much easier and makes for a virtually smoke free fire. The flame is also significantly tamer than if you light from the bottom.

No.

There is fast wood cooking (simple open fire).

And there's easy wood cooking (Trail Designs' Sidewinder ti Caldera Cone or the Tri-Ti) which is actually faster if you don't count setup time.

I prefer the cone.

I use an hobo stove (3.9 oz, including pot stand; cost me ~$0.10 worth of galvanized 16 gauge wire since everything else was either a tool I had on hand or recycled), and I find that it works just fine. Sure, you get smoke and some $mut (really, profanity filter twigs on a common word for caked-on soot?) on your pot. I'm willing to deal with that. Not hard to use, simple as pie to make.

"I am really not going to buy a BushBuddy at $120."

I'm not sure you can – I think the guy stopped making them. Nor was I suggesting you do so – just using that as a representative of small, ti woodstoves.

"Light My Fire"

A mini-bic is lighter, cheaper, easier to start a fire with. Unless you swim with it a lot! For that, have a spare one in a zip-loc baggie.

But if you're dedicated to the Light My Fire stick, pack the stove full of vertically oriented sticks, put a vaseline-soaked piece of cotton on top, hit it with your sparks, then pile tinder and super small twigs on top. The fire will work down the vertical sticks and give a nice burn. QiWiz has a good video of that on his website, except he uses a match or bic to light it.

Really easy:
Pile of dry sticks with pot in center, 1/2 liter white gas poured on dry sticks, one stroke on your Light My Fire.

For ease of starting, tilt on its side, hole up, and light that way, then return to normal orientation.

I used my QiWiz Firefly on the entire JMT. Only about 5 times did we use a canister stove. Even above 10K, where fires aren't permitted, I was told the wood-burning stove was okay so long as the wood was brought from lower elevations so as to not impact the already scarce sources at that elevation.

Anyway – the stove was awesome. Folded into an envelope that I basically forgot about in my pack all day, set up in seconds, and was very easy to start and maintain a solid fire, even with the Sierra breeze. The two of us would take turns cooking on it and it was never an issue. I know there are a lot of stoves of similar design, but the Firefly really fit the bill for me in terms of design and price.

Part of this was also not to use non-renewable resources like cotton balls or vaseline. A little bit of isopropyl alcohol is probably as far as I would go to get a stove going.

Buy some jute and gather all your used candles.
Melt the wax inside an empty can.
dip the jute twine into the melted wax running the twine through holding the free end and pushing the other end into the wax.
cut the wax covered twine into convenient size pieces.
To use rub one end (or scrape with knife) to make it fuzz up.
strike with firesteel
you now have a slow burning candle of sorts to use as a fire starter
cheap, sustainable and works. You can use cotton twine too.

gather any wood dust/chips or dryer lint
get used up candle wax again.
put dust/lint into used egg cartons.
soak into to the melted wax.
cut out individual egg cups and bring with you.
this is a serious fire starter and burn for a while.
again reusing things you have. sustainable.

I love my zip stove, had it since the early 90's. Awesome successful/durable design. Never lets me down.

2 problems tho:
1. It ain't a UL solution by any stretch of the imagination. If you're after UL, just scroung some rocks for a potstand.

2. When I got mine it was cheap, so cheap I don't remember how much. Now, they cost $60 or $130 for the Ti version

http://www.zzstove.com/

Thanks for all the ideas