Vent stress at the stove

Step away from stress and start cooking. You'll refresh your spirit and rebound from life's little annoyances. You'll give your muscles and senses a workout, focus your mind and feed both body and soul.

Alton Brown, Food Network's guru of Good Eats, finds cooking to be "a very calming ritual," he says. "It's a different kind of stress relief than I get doing anything else."

"Slicing, dicing and chopping - the rhythm of that is something I enjoy and find relaxing. But I also really, really, really like to knead dough. I like the physical action of getting my hands into it."

Whether it's biscuit making or "throwing something together" for dinner, he finds "the labor . . . the doing of cooking and things in the kitchen to be amazingly stress reducing," Brown says.

He's not alone in finding comfort in the kitchen.

"There is something about going home at the end of the day," legendary cookbook editor Judith Jones writes in The Pleasures of Cooking for One, "or giving over a quiet Sunday afternoon to cooking - smashing the garlic, chopping an onion, getting all those good cooking smells going, stirring and tasting mindfully, and then adjusting the seasonings - that makes us feel creative. It is a comforting form of relaxation - something that is needed in our busy lives."

Whether a newcomer to the world of pots and pans or a habitue of the kitchen, one's relationship with cooking is a process that needs nurturing - much like a relationship, said Edward Espe Brown, a San Francisco Bay-area Zen priest/chef/cookbook author.

"When you are in the kitchen, you can find things that you enjoy doing. Personally, I think it helps to have a sharp knife and a cutting board," said Brown (no relation to TV's Alton), who seasons sliced vegetables to match his mood. "I find that very simple and very engaging and enjoyable for me."

It's difficult to pinpoint the moment when we misplaced our joy of cooking: Was it when cooking became a competitive sport? A theatrical endeavor? A recipe with dozens of ingredients?

"We've made an idol of the food," Alton Brown says. "And we have fixated on the object of the food, not the cooking of the food."

Cooking, added Zen chef Brown, "is not going to entertain you the way television does. It can be extremely entertaining - but you have to give something for it to give you the entertainment back."

That means time and focus on cooking - and willingness to be lost. "You might think it's better to know what you're doing," said Edward Espe Brown, "but then you're not as awake and aware and careful and sensitive to what's going on around you. . . . Better to taste things and try things because you're finding your way by doing it."

Some fear the kitchen; others find it a stressful place. And for some generations, said TV's Brown, cooking has been a duty.

Yet for some who spend the day typing and texting, "we find kind of our physical solace," he said, "doing things with our hands, more and more in the kitchen.

"My kitchen is the focus of the house, I think many homes are that way," adds Brown, who's working on the second volume in his Good Eats book trilogy. "The kitchen sounds, the smells, the feels are comforting to me."

So put down your BlackBerry/cell phone. Move away from your laptop. And cook.

"Your reward is in the work," write Lauren Braun Costello and Russell Reich, in Notes on Cooking: A Short Guide to an Essential Craft. "Embrace the mundane: Find pleasure in peeling a carrot, steaming rice, searing a steak, prepping - cooking."

Makes 6 servings

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2 yellow onions

2 medium leeks, white part only

4 cups potatoes (about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds), peeled, cut in 1-inch pieces

4 cups water or chicken broth

1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup each: milk, cream (optional)

Fresh chopped herbs, such as parsley, chervil, thyme, basil

Freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup small croutons, fried in butter

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1. Slice one of the onions and the two leeks; place in soup pot with potatoes, water and salt. Heat to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered until vegetables are soft, about 40 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, dice remaining onion. Heat butter and olive oil in a heavy skillet; add diced onion. Cook over low to medium-low heat, stirring to prevent burning, until onion is soft and caramelized, about 20 minutes.

3. Press onions and leeks through a sieve or ricer; return to soup pot. (Do not use a blender; it can make the potatoes gummy.) Add caramelized onions, milk and cream. Taste for salt. Thin with more milk, if needed. Serve with fresh herbs, pepper and croutons.

Per serving: 179 calories, 3 grams protein, 28 grams carbohydrates, 7 grams fat, 10 milligrams cholesterol, 248 milligrams sodium, 3 grams dietary fiber

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