The Zen of preparing our own food

Published 2:55 pm Thursday, November 29, 2007

Zen and the art of cooking bread: Hey, if Zen works for motorcycle maintenance, why not baking? This is the jumping-off point for “How to Cook Your Life,” a whimsical new documentary.

German filmmaker Doris Dorrie, best known for her funny ’80s comedy “Men…,” put this movie together after attending a cooking class with Edward Espe Brown, a Zen priest and the author of a series of cookbooks. Brown is at the center of the film, although it also ranges across other foodie topics.

These are somewhat uneven, although there’s some distressing info about how much food actually gets wasted every day. The real heart of the movie is Brown, who’s got plenty to say about how cooking consciously — which is to say, living consciously — is the most rewarding way to go.

He talks about having gleaned some of this wisdom from his Buddhist master, and how the practice of paying attention to how you’re cooking makes a difference. “When you wash the rice, wash the rice,” might sound like no wisdom at all, but when you think about it, it’s the whole deal.

At the same time, the movie refreshingly shows Brown’s less blissed-out side. He’s obviously a guy with a temper, and it flares in the course of presiding over his kitchens. Oddly enough, this doesn’t contradict his Zen teachings, it just makes him seem human.

Dorrie follows Brown to his kitchens, in Zen centers in San Francisco and Austria, and she intercuts his world with other people’s stories (including a full-time dumpster diver who subsists on massive amounts of food thrown away by others).

Dorrie’s point is presumably to connect how our busy lifestyles have led us away from cooking in our own kitchens — how a real activity gets replaced by a service.

All of which is done in a humorous, light-footed way that never hectors. If you are susceptible to the pleasure of kneading your own dough for bread, this movie will probably hook you.