About one year ago my wife, Noukham, classically trained chef and healer in harmony with the five great elements accepted the position of Kitchen Manager at Dharma Ocean's Blazing Mountain Retreat Center. Dharma Ocean was looking to relaunch operations by opening their state-of-the-art retreat facility for rent to contemplative retreats worldwide. So I also applied for a job, excited to support this wonderful mission.

Since Noukham was going to be the boss I applied for the lowest position possible: dishwasher (and just filling as needed). But little did I know my true destiny.

I had just begun as a work-study volunteer during the 2018-2019 Winter Retreat at Garchen Buddhist Institute (a remote retreat facility near Chino Valley, Arizona). The retreat manager had assigned me to kitchen service, so I showed up promptly the next day for work.

"Hi, I'm Steven J, reporting for duty," I said to Noukham who didn't seem to be expecting someone so chipper to chop vegetables. We had only met briefly in passing prior. But we got to know each other in the kitchen real fast with calls of "open oven," "hot behind," "reporting for duty" and more!

Within four weeks we were common-law married — and cooking up a storm! Noukham taught me everything about professional kitchen cooking, beginning at Winter Teachings, through the time we eloped the jam-packed day before Yamāntaka Drubchen, and the month-long Mahāmudrā retreat. Noukham's Five Diamond style shone even in such austere commercial kitchen conditions as the remote spiritual retreat. And of course her diamond shines at home too (which in the past few years has ranged from tipi tent to dzong).

READ OUR LATEST ARTICLE: Spiritual Retreat Kitchen Ethos.

The ultimate kitchen career is that of the tenzo, IMHO. Tenzo is a Japanese title for the kitchen manager and cook of a Zen monastery, second in command after the abbot. Blazing Mountain Retreat Center strives to fill the position of Tenzo in their kitchen, so Noukham applied and quickly earned the title.

The station of Tenzo is explained in How to Cook Your Life (Dogen's classic Instructions for the Zen Cook with commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi):

See the pot as your own head; see the water as your lifeblood.

Washing the dirt from the rice, or the rice from the dirt?

Handle even a single leaf of a green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf. This is a power which you cannot grasp with your rational mind. It operates freely, according to the situation, in a most natural way.

Then, when staffing and personnel went berserk, I remembered the training Noukham had given me over the course of our four years of marriage and I rose up from the dish pit to sautee station with the title of Head Cook. Ever since that little shakeup we all (the entire crew, Noukham and I) have been really learning and ranking up!

I know we have it easy in the contemplative retreat kitchen. Tenzo never gets angry or yells, she's never thrown a pot across the kitchen. Nevertheless, in contrast to Noukham's generally playful and animated personality, Tenzo is always very serious and continually striking the FEAR OF GOD in her crew with her absolutely clear standards not a moment nor morsel could spare.

Tenzo does practically everything for us, and because she's so very predictable in her approach, I don't think I could take the heat of typical competitive kitchens obsessed with notoriety and jealous with rank. Not only do I not have the skill, it's just that our respective tasks, purposes, and end-states are a little out of line.

So I riff on the diminutive of Tenzo, and call myself Chef Boy.

Then I go beyond — I am now Chef Void.

Feast Night Menu

• Spears and Cheers
• Mukpo Potato
• Five Meats Beef
• Panna Cotta Warriors
• First Date Nut
• Rays of Reggianito
• Great Eastern Gouda
• Tonify Qi & Xuè
• Warming the Spirit

Transcreation & Sage

Thus Buddhism in American is coming down to the level of the kitchen sink; and our three-sink standard will certainly wash the dust of the world right down the drain.

When kitchen management is committed to sourcing the freshest and most local and organic ingredients, then preparing them exquisitely in a variety of cuisines by staff most properly trained, every guest and practitioner of the retreat will be properly nourished and delighted — in perfect routine — marrying flavors with the seasons in the collective stock.