How to Cook Your Life (2007) has not won much praise from viewers, but I liked it. The documentary focuses on the American Zen Buddhist teacher Edward Espe Brown and the relationship between cooking and life. To get much out of this low-key film, you have to be ready. So I’ll explain one of three things I got out of it, and if it resonates with you, you might well like the film.
As a young trainee and cook at Zen training centres in California, Brown thought the offering of food to Buddha was stupid: Gautama Buddha has been dead for more than 2,000 years, so he won’t be appreciating the cooking—“especially loved the crepes!” mocks Brown. But two decades later, Brown suddenly realized what a powerful practice it was: You do your best, offer it, and turn around and walk away. Yes, Buddha never says thanks for the food. So as a cook, where are you going to get your satisfaction? Good question for life as well as cooking.
Tonight, a few days after watching the film, I had a good chance to implement Brown’s teaching. I made a huge Greek-style salad based on a Vegetarian Epicure II recipe and took it to an extended family gathering. No one said they enjoyed it, and no one said how wonderful it was that in all the chaos they didn’t have to make a salad to go with the spaghetti and tomato sauce. Irrelevant. I was delighted with the wild diversity of flavours in the atypical salad—green olives from California, thinly sliced fennel, slivers of red pepper with creamy feta—and how it was a refreshing contrast to the familiar spaghetti sauce. And I was excited to discover a combination that I really liked. As Brown said, he initially tried to cook to please everyone, but he soon learned that that way lies certain suffering.