So I've since (re)discovered "trivets". I thought I remembered my grandmother having a raised iron mesh on her wood stove. Have a question for anyone familiar with them:
A trivet seems like a good way to warm a cooking pot slowly, from room temperature, on a woodstove that is already hot. Would I want to place a cool trivet on the stove, and the pot on the trivet, to begin this process, or does a trivet stay cool enough atop the stove permanently, that I could put a room-temperature pot directly on it?

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So I've since (re)discovered "trivets". I thought I remembered my grandmother having a raised iron mesh on her wood stove. Have a question for anyone familiar with them:
A trivet seems like a good way to warm a cooking pot slowly, from room temperature, on a woodstove that is already hot. Would I want to place a cool trivet on the stove, and the pot on the trivet, to begin this process, or does a trivet stay cool enough atop the stove permanently, that I could put a room-temperature pot directly on it?

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I have those trivet things...sitting in a drawer somewhere...never use them as I just found them only suitable for keeping a cooked meal somewhat warm, not for cooking, maybe others have better skill with them than I do....what I have found useful and very much so are fire bricks (buy a few from CT) I can have a raging fire but be cooking slowly on top of the stove just by how I use the bricks, I even cut one brick up (using a grinder with a zip)in 2 inch slices so I could set a pot on two pieces at opposite sides of the pot so the heat can only slowly travel up these small pieces to heat the pot up slowly. I believe you need two kinds to cover your cooking needs...buy a few from Canadian tire, these ones are very light eazy to cut, and there is another type that you may have to go to a specialty wood store to find, they are as dense as rock, I have been unable to cut them so you will use full brick sizes. Between these two types of bricks and pieces and how you use them you can cook just fine on a wood stove, or I can...your millage may vary.

Thats my humidifier water kettel sitting on the stove, if it was set directly on the stove the water would boil away in a hour or 2. By using bricks, or this case a couple pieces of bricks, and depending where I place it on the stove, I can have the water evaporate away slowly all day, or even over two days.
I need to add humidity to the house in winter.

Ahh, that's a smart solution, those fire bricks, thanks!

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Throw a nice thick quality steak directly on a wood stove. Awesome taste.

Is anyone cooking on a woodstove using a pot/pan made of a non-metallic material?

I'm trying to prep against the possibility of, say, the military collecting all my loose metal for a war effort, leaving me with no way to cook food...

I haven't come across anything that you can't cook with aluminum foil. This also works well in a campfire situation (in case you have to bug-out or they take your stove).

If they take my pots and pans, I hope they leave me with my coffee pot. Boiling water in a bag is time consuming and a real bitch... 🙂

It's funny, morning coffee is important to me as well. One of the reasons I'm seeking answers to this question is because I've got a ceramic kettle & porcelain pour-over coffee maker, need to make sure I'm not going to break the kettle with thermal shock.

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Interesting article on exploding glass

Dr. John C. Mauro, a professor of engineering and materials science at Penn State, said in an email that the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is the main parameter used to measure thermal shock resistance. A higher CTE number means the material is less resilient to thermal shock. For example, Corning Visions cookware, a descendent of Pyrex Flameware, is designed for stovetop use and has a CTE close to zero, Mauro explained. Borosilicate glass has a CTE of 3 or 4 parts per million per 1 Kelvin change (ppm/K). But soda-lime glass has a CTE of 9 to 9.5 ppm/K.

https://gizmodo.com/the-pyrex-glass-controversy-that-just-wont-die-1833040962