No Recipe: Cooking as Spiritual Practice

by Edward Espe Brown

Discover How to Cook—with Your Senses, Your Hands, and Your Heart "Making your love manifest, transforming your spirit, good heart, and able hands into food is a great undertaking,” writes renowned chef and Zen priest Edward Espe Brown, “one that will nourish you in the doing, in the offering, and in the eating.” With No Cooking as Spiritual Practice, Brown beautifully blends expert cooking advice with thoughtful reflections on meaning, joy, and life itself. Reading Brown’s witty and engaging collection of essays is like learning to cook—and meditate—with your own personal chef and Zen teacher. Drawing from a lifetime of experience, he invites us into his home and kitchen to explore how cooking and eating can be paths to awakening. Baking, cutting, chopping, and tasting are not seen as rigid techniques, but as opportunities to find joy and satisfaction in the present moment. “Forget the rules and forget what you’ve been told,” teaches Brown. “Discover for yourself by tasting, testing, experimenting, and experiencing.” From soil to seed and preparation to plate, No Recipe brings us a collection of timeless teachings on awakening in the sacred space of the kitchen.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Cooking, Zen, Cookbooks, Buddhism

250 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2018

About the author

Edward Espe Brown is a Zen Buddhist priest and professional chef.

Reviews

[Fussnik · Rating 5 out of 5]

People tend to confuse meditation with exotica: sitting in poses that hurt the knee, buying silk cushions, going somewhere other than where you are. Ed Brown brings the lessons he has learned into the kitchen and we see that watching the mind, and noticing how it chooses to see things, is the core of meditation. We can do it while cutting, while chewing.

"Entering the sacred space of the kitchen, we don't know what will happen. We shift from the preoccupation of being in control to the focus of being in connection. Shift from your head to your heart and hands, your body and being, and you will tend to discover... moments of meeting the Beloved. What are you doing with your life? How will you choose to see things?"

When you give your attention to the ingredients, you let the true spirit of the grain speak. You sense the velvety flesh of butter lettuce coming alive in your mouth, alive and then disappearing. The rigid outer world of right and wrong, good and bad, dissolves, and in complete calmness, your heart resonates buoyantly. Anytime you are still and receptive, you can meet what is from beyond.

"The zen tradition of work ... mostly ... involves cleaning. Our mentors tried again and again to explain that it wasn't that clean was more spiritual than dirty, but that we were practicing relating with things --- touching them, tending to them, being in connection with them, not taking them for granted.When you practice this, you are living in another world, a world where things embody your spirit, where your presence gives things presence. We hardly have language for this: things are simply things, aren't they? Yet when you practice caring for, tending to things, things are not just things. They are an embodiment of your spirit."

[Cindy Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't get enough as I read the first 50 pages. But after that, it really slowed down a lot for me and became hard to read. The stories are very disjointed. However, when read in pieces the information is good and I enjoyed the opportunity to think about growing, becoming, and reflecting through the process of cooking.

[Happyreader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The chapter of enlivening the kale salad taste by taste was fabulous. Wish more of the book was like that.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, deep Zen connections between cooking and Buddhism.

[Roben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have cherished all books by way of Edward Espe Brown. He calls for presence in the kitchen. Love.

[Allan Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part memoir, part spiritual guide, Brown's charming book advocates for a return to the sacred in our cooking and in our lives. With eyes firmly set on the Buddhist precept of the the Middle Way (i.e. balance between extremes), this isn't an ascetic account of food, but a rich and vibrant celebration of the power of making and sharing food.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book kept my attention despite, on occasion, a bit too much Zen philosophy for my brain. I liked how very personal it is. I garnered reinforcement for my love of cooking, tasting, and sharing, through the examples in his life. I'm glad to own this book because I will return to it again.

[Evelyn Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed the combination of buddhism with cooking. The first half especially resonated with me and included many encouraging ideas to immerse myself even more in the cooking process. Allow it to transform me while I am preparing food.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Musings and mullings on what it was like to be the head of the Tassajara Kitchen, cooking, eating and Zen living

[Eric Loflin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my perspective this is not a cookbook but a book about developing a healthy relationship with food, eating, prepping and sharing it.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does anyone love you? Do you?

[Xinma · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat! Mr Brown brings light and insight to the subject of cooking our meals and cooking ourselves.
I was inspired while reading and sad to see it end. I’ll use many aspects of this book

[Ben O'Hare · Rating 2 out of 5]

More woffle than substance.

[Mitch Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

No Recipe, 16

“We are called to be larger-hearted than we can even imagine” 23

“You trust your taste, until it changes, and then trust your taste.” 30

[Dougj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life changing.

[Linus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read on cooking, life and Zen practice: highly recommended to any student of Zen interested in food out there!

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lacks organization: disjointed and rambly. Some good information, but overall seems a bit too stream of consciousness. Read about 3/4.

[Kait · Rating 5 out of 5]

after working as a cook for seventeen years this feels like coming home but I don't think you need to have spent years dicing 20# of onions to find something helpful here

[Johnathan Kindall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew from the minute I picked this up that I was going to enjoy it, and I was absolutely right. There’s some wonderful, refreshing, and well-articulated insights in here that have furthered and deepened my love for both zen and cooking, and the only thing that got me to put this book down was the urge to move myself to the kitchen.

That being said, if you’re not as passionate about both zen and cooking as I am, you’ll probably struggle through this, and I don’t even think I would recommend it to most. It’s airy, esoteric, meandering and repetitive, as so many spirituality books tend to be, and while there’s a lot to love and learn, if this doesn’t seem like a book you’d like, it probably isn’t.

[Anna Katherina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like it as someone both intrigued by Zen philosophy, whose primary language of love is Service as expressed through cooking, and who views cooking as perhaps one of the most spiritual actions a human can participate in... And at some points I did... But ultimately the book was disjointed and it's hard to concentrate or stay with the story.

Frankly I found myself bored out of my mind before it really even began; I picked the book up several times since snagging it excitingly from the library. But each time I'd read a few paragraphs, get bored with it again, and swap it out for something else I found more interesting. By the time a week had passed I was still only on page 15; I gave it one last hearty attempt today snuggled up in my favorite chair with a good cup of tea... And still only made it to page 20 before I simply gave up completely and DNF'd the book.

It's just not for me.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book containing recipes or cooking advice but a reflection on the experience of cooking and food.
It is really interesting and give food for thought.
Recommended if you want to reflect on your relationship with food.
Many thanks to Sounds True Publishing and Netgalley

[Mom2blu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I once used cooking to pull myself out of a depression. If you are that type of cook, you will love this book. It is not a cookbook, it is a cooking book. Putting thought into the how, and why, with interesting tips and ideas spread throughout. If you tend to nerd out about cooking you will love it. If you believe in the spiritual parts of the every day, you will love it. If you love hearing some neat stories about cooking at retreats and such, you will love it. If you are looking for a book of HOW to cook, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a book about cooking as a spiritual event, about WHY to cook, about loving cooking, why to love cooking, and being curious about it, then look here and you will be happy.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book of recipes-it is focused on a philosophy of life. As an almost Buddhist myself, I found a great deal to like here. There is much wisdom and it is very well conveyed. Very enjoyable and well-written. Recommended.
My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philosophy and meditation on life, cooking and eating.

Not a recipe book but an interesting read if you are trying to be more “present” in the kitchen and life in general. Put a little love into your life and the meals you prepare.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a preview copy.