Cooking with Big Mind

or How I Survived Zen Cooking Boot Camp

By Mary Tilson

 

JUNE 15, 2007: It’s late in the afternoon and I have just driven 14 dusty, bumpy, pot-holed miles into a remote canyon in the Ventana Wilderness via Carmel Valley. I’m in the bosom of nature, by all accounts. Minus the backdrop of freeways, cars, and 6 million people with at least as many boom boxes, I expected silence, but instead I am assaulted by the cacophony of assertive blue jays, the insistence of a babbling river, the lumbering sound of feet on gravel, plus a day-long schedule of chanting, gongs, and bells.

I’ve come here for a weekend course called Cooking with Big Mind, one of several offerings in the summer guest season at the Tassajara Mountain Zen Center. I have no idea what to expect, since, true to my nature, I didn’t ask. The first thing I learn is that there are a lot of rules and schedules.

Dinner takes place promptly at 7 in a beautiful but simple wood paneled dining room with wall-to-wall windows overlooking the river. Tonight we are served an excellent vegetarian Mexican stew of chard, potatoes, milk, and cheese, along with sides of beans, guacamole, and tortillas. Dessert is coffee-flavored flan.

After dinner, my class meets with cooking instructor Kathy Eagan, a Zen practitioner of 16 years who occasionally cooks at Tassajara in the guest season. Formerly head cook (tenzo) at the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin, she’s 60ish, slim, with brilliant white hair wrapped into a braided bun—a lovely woman with a puckish and irreverent sense of humor. We learn about the class schedule and are taken on a tour of the small, crowded, but well-appointed kitchen before being dismissed. There is just enough time to enjoy the hot springs and the glowing stars before we fall into bed.

JUNE 16: A solo bell-ringer walks through the center at 3:30 a.m., calling the monks and students for morning meditation. Fortunately, guests can stay in bed. Our first scheduled event is the 8 a.m. zazen (meditation) lesson in the zendo (meditation hall). The lesson covers such essentials as how to bow without falling over, when to bow, when not to bow, exactly when to take off your shoes, how to hold your arms, and in general how to avoid being annoying to all. My inner former Catholic is resisting, but as a Big Mind cooking student, I’m trying to go with the flow.

After breakfast, the class begins with Kathy giving a “mindful cooking talk,” and I realize that she is about to attempt the impossible—instructing our group (none of us has any professional kitchen experience) on how to cook for 70 people. We sit on pillows on the floor as we learn the 28 rules of the Zen kitchen. Here is my short form:

1. Pay attention
2. Give the work your best shot
3. Be magnanimous
4. Everything counts
5. Keep conversation at a very dull roar (only speak when necessary)
6. Clean up as you go
7. Notice what makes things flow from job to job
8. Do one thing at a time
9. Take care of kitchen pots and tools as if they were your own eyes
10. Cultivate harmony

We learn that the fundamentals of Zen cooking are, essentially, to pay attention to what we are thinking, feeling, and doing. Kathy explains that cooking is informal practice, and I can’t help but think, “Practice for what?” I was expecting to receive detailed instruction on the mechanics of cooking and perhaps learn some cutting-edge techniques and unique methods. Instead I’m learning about enlightenment, which comes from conscious activity. My mind leaps forward to the possibility that I could make a mistake and ruin dinner for 70 people, but Kathy persists. Our Zen cooking practice is about our own experience. It is the process, the preparation, the rules of the kitchen, and the doing of whatever is in front of us that is the essence of our practice.

After lunch we strap on our aprons and bow at the kitchen shrine. There is a lot of bowing here—more than at a square dance. You bow in and out of meditation, in and out of the kitchen, at the hot spring–fed baths, and generally when entering any place with an altar.

The menu today looks quite good. The main dish is a galette, an open-face pie, made with fresh leeks, plenty of organic butter, crème fraîche, white wine, and goat cheese. Also on the menu are roasted vegetables; a salad made with fresh greens, flowers from the garden, and lovely little Chinese tangerines; and a wonderful almond torte made with several tons of almond paste.

In the Zen kitchen, roles are very well defined. The tenzo is the head honcho, the CEO in charge of all things edible, overall menu development, and ordering—in other words, executive chef. The fukitan is the kitchen project manager/ drill sergeant (without the yelling) who assigns tasks and assures that everything is done on time.

I am on pastry detail, which pleases me, since I am particularly good at making pie dough. However, I soon suspect that my experience is a liability, since it leaves me with expectations of how this should go. I believe I am paying attention and doing exactly as I am told as my co-worker and I mix heaps of flour, pounds of butter, and volumes of cold water into a large mass that will become a mere one-third of tonight’s crusts. As we finish, the Zen center resident assigned to lead our detail looks mildly perplexed, asking how much butter was used. We realize that we have shorted the butter in this batch by about 35 percent, and I think, “This is not good. Pastry-making is a chemistry project—chilled fat combined with searing heat causes the pastry to flake. Pie dough without enough butter tastes like—well—cooked kindergarten paste.” I suggest we toss the first batch, but our leader says no—we will correct the proportions on the next two batches but use what is in front of us and hope that no one notices. I am worried, but there is a ton more work to do and dinner hour is fast approaching.

I carry the dough to the walk-in fridge and turn toward cleaning up, following the specified process and attempting to treat everything as I would my own eyes (see rules on previous page). Meanwhile, the others are constructing the galettes, spooning dessert into cake pans, and preparing salad—all in specific fashion. When the galettes go into the oven, I’m given the job of keeping an eye on their progress. Feeling a little bored, I volunteer to slice the tiny mandarin oranges into perfect wedges for the salads. Of course, I forget to check the pies, breaking a cardinal rule…pay attention. Luckily, the pies appear to be fine as I take them from the oven.

Plating everything is an amazing process as 70 meals are tossed, cut, or prepped. By some miracle, there is no panic, there are no ego-laden histrionics from the fukitan, no harsh words (actually hardly any words at all), and at 7 p.m. we are dismissed, bowing out of the kitchen as a group to join the other guests in the dining room.

Moment of truth: I am trembling inside over the possibility that the crust won’t taste very good while mollifying myself by thinking of the butter-shorted piecrust as my personal contribution to a heart-healthy diet. Relief comes with the first bite of galette: the crust is buttery and crisp and the filling is a delicious mix of warm leek, butter, wine, spice, with copious amounts of goat cheese. I look around and see that nobody is in need of the Heimlich maneuver, and, in fact, everyone seems to be enjoying the meal.

When we’re done, I head for the bathhouse, where I bow in at the altar before immersing myself in the warm mineral waters. I feel preternaturally calm as I bask in the successful outcome of the meal, and then I busy myself setting to memory some lessons from the day: Pay attention. Use what is before you and make the best of the ingredients on hand.

JUNE 17: At morning zazen, I luxuriate in the diffused light in the zendo, trying to let go of the list of stuff I plan to worry about on the drive home: an impending layoff at work, traffic, my aching foot…I follow the instructions to simply concentrate on the breath while sitting quietly. After zazen I have my closing interview with Kathy. She reminds me that (among other things) Zen practice is about magnanimity and intention—you put your attention to the task and this manifests the intention. I leave for home knowing that I have the Zen secret to making pie dough: Perfection is not necessary; intention is. •

Mary Tilson is best known for her Americana radio program “America’s Back 40” heard every Sunday at 1 p.m. on KPFA 94.1 FM. Her love of baking goes back to her girlhood in Detroit, where she was influenced by her Grandmother Tilson’s incomparable apple, lemon meringue, and chicken pot pies, chocolate cake, and chicken soup with homemade noodles, and by her Aunt Mae’s never replicated even after many attempts banana bread.