Zen Master and Renowned Chef Edward Espe Brown is captured on film as he guides students through the mastery of cooking and the importance of how we treat our food. Heartwarming insightful and often surprising.
How to Cook Your Life offers a delectable introduction to Buddhist living. Yes, subject Edward Brown is both pastry chef and Zen priest, but Dörrie's approach is more holistic than instructional. In other words, home cooking--as opposed to fast food and pre-packaged goods--isn't just healthier and better for the environment; it connects the creator to the product of their efforts. And it helps if they know more about the tools of their trade.
Hence, the director of 2000's Enlightenment Guaranteed and a Buddhist practitioner herself, also interviews organic gardeners, cookware salespeople, and the like. Throughout, Brown shows students in the US and Austria how to prepare vegetarian pizza, fruit tarts, and other wholesome delights. All the while, he talks about the connection between the body and the spirit.
Fortunately, Brown isn't some kind of holier-than-though type. Little things, like hard-to-open packages, can set him off, but he's just as quick to laugh. To him, cooking is a way to nourish yourself and others. As he likes to say, "When you wash the rice, wash the rice." Like Super-Size Me, How to Cook Your Life is an elegy for those long-lost days of leisurely dinners with loved ones
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