The writing of this book has possibly been the most challenging project I have ever undertaken, as somehow it necessitated surfacing ancient disappointment, shame, fear, terror, and dread—however you might describe this: surfacing, acknowledging, letting go, reintegrating. The work of becoming a mature grown-up continues. Writing, then, is not just writing but finding a voice for the story. I’ve had to ask for help, over and over and over again.
First and foremost, I offer thanks and gratitude to my beloved Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who took me into his lineage and into his heart. More than anyone’s voice, his resonates throughout the book. Which means that the succession of Zen teachers is here with us.
Likewise I am indebted to my beloved teachers Dainin Katagiri Roshi and Kobun Chino Roshi, who tutored a rather intense young man into adulthood, doing whatever it took, whether holding my hand or setting me straight.
I have persevered with this writing for about fifteen years. While in many ways settled and stable, these years at the same time have been tumultuous—and at times painful for those in my near vicinity. Apologies along with prayers and blessings, my friends.
During this time a friend, Susan Piver, handed me her copy of On Becoming an Alchemist by Catherine MacCoun. The hair on my arms stood on end while reading the first page, and I read it through five times before I could put it down. (Others do not have the same experience: “Why’d you give me that book?”) So thanks and gratitude, Susan, for this gift and for your abiding friendship.
Also blessings and gratitude to Catherine for her brilliant, humorous, down-to-earth, magical clarity, including an introduction to the language of horizontal and vertical. I proceeded to take several online courses with Catherine, including one titled Meditations on the Tarot, which further awakened my sense of the world being alive with consciousness. Another aspect of my voice. And she told me to get on with it!
Warmhearted gratitude for my next-door neighbors, Jennifer Buchanan and Mark Otavka. Your friendship has been a tremendous blessing in my life, including, of course, your introducing me to the energy work of Lynda Caesara.
I took Lynda’s two-year energy class twice, with one year off in between. An extraordinary course—both times. Without crediting her directly, her voice speaks throughout this work. She and her students will be able to spot it. Thank you, dear teacher, for all the skills, tools, practices, and resources that you conveyed and continue to share. Living in sacred space—awesome!
Due to Lynda’s recommendation, I managed to take a Process workshop with Myrna Martin. Over five days, eight of us—each with a full morning or afternoon’s attention—went deeply into the realm of our womb experience, birth, and early childhood. With Myrna’s steadfast, loving presence often reminding us to look around the room: the early trauma is not happening today! Thank you, Myrna—my gratitude.
Jack Elias, who teaches Finding True Magic (.com), and is an old friend from Tassajara in the sixties, has become a gifted hypnotherapist. After two sessions with him, I called to tell him, “It’s like finding true magic.” Thank you, dear friend. Love and blessings.
Over the last several years, I’ve had a number of sessions with Barry Auchettl that have consistently cleared my way forward. Signing up for his Master Mentoring course, I didn’t follow up by becoming fabulously wealthy; instead, I finished my book! Thank you, Barry. “Practice gratitude,” you said, and now I extend it to you!
Sojun Mel Weitsman gave me dharma entrustment in 1996 and has continued to be a trustworthy friend and mentor. More than anyone, for me, he embodies the spirit and practice of Suzuki Roshi. Let’s continue this practice together forever.
Likewise I continue to be indebted and grateful for the teaching and friendship of Jack Kornfield at all those vipassana retreats so many years ago and at our way-too-infrequent meetings.
Moving on more specifically to the actual writing, I am especially grateful to Melvin McLeod, president and editor-in-chief of the Lion’s Roar and Buddhadharma magazines. That he appreciated my writing, and told me so more than once, has as much as anything or anyone encouraged me to continue writing.
Kaz Tanahashi has been a gracious friend and mentor, as well as a prolific translator of writings of Zen Master Dōgen. The Dōgen quotes I’ve used throughout this book are from his work, primarily Moon in a Dewdrop.
Thanks to Jennifer Urban Brown of Shambhala Publications for working with me on The Complete Tassajara Cookbook.
Thanks to Jennifer Brown of Sounds True for reaching out to me more than once.
Thanks to Michael Katz, my book agent on more than one project, for being genuinely Michael.
Thanks to Caroline Pincus, my editor with Sounds True, for easing things along. How sweet is that? As well as Vesela Simic, my copy editor.
I am also in awe and inspired by the work of Robert Bly, not only his poetry but also his books Iron John and The Sibling Society. His live readings touched me deeply, and I have memorized several poems off of the tapes. My gratitude also for the work of Michael Meade, especially The Water of Life, as well as his live storytelling, and for the work of Coleman Barks, particularly The Essential Rumi, as well as his presence as a performer.
Grateful and delighted for my friendship with Haydn Reiss, as well as his wife, Zuhra, whose most recent movie, Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy, is engaging, lively, and informative.
In 2005 Doris Dörrie approached me at Tassajara and inquired if I would like to make a movie on Dōgen’s Tenzo Kyōkun, and I said, “Sure.” We filmed the following year at Scheibbs in Austria and Tassajara in California, and the movie How to Cook Your Life premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2007. Doris has a remarkable spirit, full of interest, curiosity, compassion, and playfulness. I am very grateful for her efforts, especially as her movie has inspired a career of teaching Zen and cooking courses in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. A livelihood doing what I love, even though English is their second language!
Also, gratitude to Mathias at Scheibbs; to Shonen and Nakagawa Roshi at Zen Eisenbuch; to Arnim, Milo, and Rose, along with Vanja Palmers Roshi at Felsentor in Switzerland; and to Joanna, Sabine, and Edith of the Shambhala Center in Vienna—for all they do to make my workshops possible. I feel welcomed and appreciated. Thank you!
Here in California: Anna Thorn of Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm has appreciated my skills and invited me to work with her. Mick Sopko and Jeff Logan warmly welcomed me to a morning of working at the bakery there.
I am grateful to all the cooks, known and unknown, storied and nameless, doing what they can to offer food to themselves and others. In these acknowledgments, I’d like to focus on those I know (or knew) personally, offering my thanks and gratitude: to my mother, Anne; to my first teachers, Jim Vaughn and Ray Hurslander, mentoring me with ease and generosity; one of their teachers, Alan Hooker of The Ranch House restaurant in Ojai, California, who among other things sensed the possibilities for community and collaboration among his staff (and on three acres of California grassland built a restaurant and gardens); Alice Waters for her remarkable generosity, along with her profound love for the ingredients that move her, and for her devotion to her vision of the Edible Schoolyard (and so much more); for Deborah Madison, who practiced for twenty years at the Zen Center, then studied with Alice and subsequently started Greens Restaurant in San Francisco (where I worked), and her truly poetic sense for the ingredients and their possibilities; for Patty Unterman, owner of the Hayes Street Grill, for sparking my career teaching cooking classes with a one-paragraph mention in her “Dining Out” column; to Dick Graff, an unbelievably gracious mentor (and winemaker); and to my chef friend Robert Reynolds, as it is so charming to be greeted with two twenty-year-old Bordeaux wines upon arrival for dinner, along with fresh red radishes, sweet butter, salt, and mildly alcoholic French cidre—I couldn’t be more grateful! Patrick Schmidt has been a complete joy to work with for my courses at Scheibbs—unbelievably professional. My special thanks and admiration to Charles Schumann, who takes me under his wing on my annual pilgrimage to his bar in Munich, Schumann’s—great presence, along with simple yet beautiful food and drink. Also, my gratitude to Erik of Erik’s, nearby in Eching, Germany, whose food is superb and in my price range.
I am thankful for Sharon Valentine, who lived next door for fourteen years, providing flower gardens and her warmhearted support for me being me as best as I could.
One of my students, Danny Parker, has put together a book of my lectures—to come out a year after this book—a labor of love, respect, and devotion. Though he lives in Florida, we talk on the phone almost every week to my joy and pleasure. Prayers and blessings, venerable friend.
Love and blessings to my daughter, Lichen, her husband, Scott, and my granddaughter, Danika.
Love and blessings to my precious partner, Margot, as well as thanks and gratitude for her dreaming up the book’s title, No Recipe, and for contributing her artwork for the illustrations.
Again, thanks to Marj Stone for providing a writing studio at a rent I could afford.
JJ Cale and Leonard Cohen: not without you!
And to my readers: I believe in you.
Love and blessings,
Edward