The Zen of peeling potatoes.

Dana Velden turns the act of cooking into a mindful practice

Dana Velden is a Zen priest and former head cook (tenzo in Japanese) at the San Francisco Zen Center, where she lived and studied for 15 years. Now living in Oakland, she has been a blogger on mindful cooking for The Kitchn for several years, a beat that inspired her new book, “Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations and Inspired Recipes from a Mindful Cook” (Rodale).

At the Zen Center, Velden says she first “ended up” in the kitchen as part of the routine duties of living there. Then the kitchen became a place where, whatever was happening beyond its walls — including divorce and the death of her father — she could find a deep contentment.

Velden’s approachable essays offer several paths to make cooking a less fearful or stressful — and more fulfilling — task. Her encouragement can transform even the kitchen mundanities that people tend to loathe, such as cleaning up a pile of dishes, into a stepping stone toward a happier state of mind, both inside and outside the kitchen. Q: What was your attitude toward the kitchen before living and cooking at the San Francisco Zen Center? A: I’ve always had an interest in food and cooking since I was a teenager, and certainly when I was in my 20s and 30s; at that time I was married and I would have dinner parties. I never saw it as a place of practice and never understood that it could be a place of practice, but it was always a place I enjoyed being. I didn’t necessarily have a deeper relationship, but that came once I finished at Zen Center. Q: So you always liked to cook for others? A: Before I started to go to Zen Center, I was a happy person. Everything was good in my life, but I wasn’t necessarily that contemplative. I think there was a little foreshadowing in that I loved to bake things and make things and give them to people. I always got a pang of pleasure from doing that.

I lived in Wisconsin before I moved to California, and I appreciated the cozy nature of the kitchen as a place where you could hunker in for an afternoon. I didn’t frame it in the same way that I talk about it now, after being at Zen Center, but yeah, I think it always had a pull for me, it was always a place for expression. Q: Although your book contains some recipes, how is it different from a conventional cookbook? A: There is a lot out there on how to cook, there is a lot out there on the mechanics of cooking —cookbooks and cooking magazines and podcasts and YouTube videos and cooking shows. I mean, it’s even gotten popular in the movies now, to feature chefs and cooking — and that’s great! We live in a time where if you wanted to make a casserole it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out how. Or something like croissants — it’s something kind of elaborate you can teach yourself how to do just based on all of the material out there. All of that is really exciting and it’s really wonderful, but for me that’s not the whole picture.

That’s why I call the book “Finding Yourself in the Kitchen”: You bring in who you are, you bring in whatever is happening in your life at that moment. The circumstances of your life are almost an ingredient, so if you’ve had a stressful day, or if you’re celebrating or if something’s going on and you don’t have a lot of money and you don’t have a lot of ingredients or whatever, that comes into the kitchen with you. Those things are just as important as the recipe and any of your ingredients, so how do you work with them? Q: Are there certain types of meals that you prepare that make you feel the most centered or at peace? A: I think it is all circumstantial. For me, one of the things I like a lot is when I look into my refrigerator or look into my pantry, and I’ve got a bunch of these little things that don’t look like they are connected. Like, two carrots, some leftover chicken, some leftover beans and maybe a head of cauliflower. They don’t look like anything when they are separate, but I just pull them all out and open up my imagination and start cooking, and then I find a way for it all to come together.

For me that is a magical moment! I didn’t have a plan but the ingredients told me in some way what was going to happen. I think that connects with my message of mindfulness and paying attention, because it’s not about laying a preconceived idea on what you’re going to do. It’s about being aware and awake and present in the moment and letting the moment come forward — or, in this case, the ingredients in the moment come forward.