Help me out here... which method do you prefer cooking over a small stove or cooking over an fire grate with the campfire?? And why??

I use a fire for Lakers & dishwater (no connection), and a stove for everything else.

I used to rely on a stove for everything, but I got tired of it. It's one extra thing to carry around, plus the fuel, which I never learned how to conserve. While it is nice to wake up in the morning and have a cup of coffee in under five minutes, and have the ability to cook, etc. more easily under the tarp on a rainy day, it isn't worth the extra hassle to me.

With a fire, I feel like I get more out of my time in the woods. I mean, how often do I get to use a fire to cook? Not nearly often enough. Sure, it's a pain sometimes to gather wood, feed it, and extinguish it when I have to leave it alone, but really, it's just another part of the game. Fire building and management, and fire cooking, is a lost art.

If I get rained in and can't keep a fire going, I eat cold food, and use my filter to get drinking water. Not a big deal. In a real pinch, a small fire can be built with dead pine and birch bark, even under the tarp. It doesn't take much to prepare a quick meal, and such a small fire can be made and extinguished without leaving a trace. But really, before doing that, I'd spend the day eating jerky and granola bars, and it wouldn't be the first time I've eaten dehydrated food reconstituted with cold water.

Makes the sunny days that much better, right?

Besides, fire keeps me busy and it keeps me company. The need for firewood is just another reason to hop in the canoe and go explore. Though I wish that more people would leave their sites to gather wood, as some that I've seen in my limited travels have been horribly denuded by lazy campers. But that boils down to the whole respect and manners thing, and I don't want to get started on that...

If done right, the only thing a fire won't save you is a little bit of extra time.

I cook over a wood fire most of the time.  Occasionally I have to take a stove due to fire restrictions; and I'll have to say it is nice to have a quick and hot meal on a wet day.  I usually travel every day but don't think the fire building takes a lot of time and I can usually find dry wood.  Sometimes campsites which are almost wood-less will have beaver wood along the shorelines under the brush...lots of campers don't use the beaver wood approach.  If it is wet and late in the day I sometimes just eat cold items but really miss a hot cup of coffee.  Cooking on the BW grates can be difficult, they are too high to be able to cook on a small twig fire, so you have to find quite a bit of wood to get a hot fire going.  I bring along a small camping fire grate and build a little fire just in front of the grate area, balancing the grate on a couple rocks.  When done I just shove the coals back into the fire pit.  When going with 4 or more in the party we usually bring a two burner camp stove, it makes cooking for a group so much easier.

I use a stove for coffee or if I need a quick 1-pot meal. I prefer a fire - to me food tastes better when cooked over a fire. Maybe it's the smoke, maybe it's the quality of heat, or maybe it's that I'm really hungry by the time I get a fire going and the food cooked.  I usually carry a small lightweight welded wire fire grate to make the whole experience a little easier.