For dutch oven cooking outdoors using charcoal you want the type with the legs. The Lodge company does make a cast iron leg accessory for the pots with no legs...sort of a folding trivet. I have one and use it to rest the lid on. The thing is though that the dutch ovens with legs have a lid with a rim...so that you can place charcoal on top. The meal is cooked from the top and the bottom which makes it cook much faster. The rim is important because you don't want the ashe from the charcoal to fall into the dish you are preparing. The coolest thing about dutch ovens is that you can feed a crowd by cooking in a small space. You can stack dutch ovens on top of each other. Put you stew etc. in the bottom pot, a vegtable or a casserole in the next smaller one, your dessert (a cobbler) in the next pot, your biscuits, corn bread or yeast rolls in the last pot. The coals on the lids also heat and cook the food from the bottom of the next pot.
Tom built me a metal stand for cooking and put a 12 in X 12 in stone on top that I put my first set of charcoal on. I do have friends that have tables they bought expecially for their dutch ovens though. I also have friends that use one pot with a gas cooker and their food is also good.
I use long non flamable gloves when I cook...not to is risking getting branded! I also use a lid lifter. It is NOT hard to condition them and some come preconditioned but when I looked at them I think they were waxy and I think I read you had to burn the wax off anyway...so you might as well recondition them. If I remember correctly you can do so in a 400 degree oven (I think it was 400)...or in your grill. We use the grill for this.
Downside...they can be heavy if you are getting a lil older.
They usually clean up easily with water and a brush...if you ever have to use soap...you pretty much have to recondition them or they will rust. It is better to bake off any thing then to use soap.
Dutch Oven advice
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