Zen and The Art of Cooking

Documentary : How to Cook Your Life

To be released in Nov-Dec 2007 in the United States. Looks interesting, I missed it when it was screening in Singapore during the Buddhism Film Festival in May 2007, http://www.asianbuddhistfilmfest.org/

Some back history on the influence of this movie's main foundation;

If you are interested is what Zen - Art of Cooking is about.
You can check out Master Eihei Dogen Zenji (1200-1253) the founder of Soto Zen, and his book "Instructions for the Tenzo(Chief Cook)" - of anyone working in the kitchen, or anyone sitting zazen(seated mediation position)—is how to be present, fully present, moment by moment, without being caught by either past or future, or like or dislike.
And the same book but difference translation "Refining Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment"

Who is Master Dogen: http://www.terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/dogen.html
From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment, Refining Your Life: http://www.intrex.net/chzg/mel11.htm

A COOKING CLASS WITH ZEN PRIEST AND CHEF EDWARD ESPE BROWN

Move over “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!” Here comes Zen and the Art of a Good Meal! Filmmaker Doris Dörrie turns her attention to Buddhism and that age-old saying, you are what you eat. In How To Cook Your Life, Dörrie enlists the help of the charismatic Zen Master Edward Espe Brown to explain the guiding principles of Zen Buddhism as they apply to the preparation of food as well as life itself. “How a person goes about dealing with the ingredients for his meals” explains Dörrie “says a lot about him. How To Cook Your Life teaches us to be attentive in our everyday dealings with the most mundane things and also open our eyes to one of the most beautiful occupations: cooking.”

Edward Espe Brown
Edward Brown has been practicing Zen for over forty years, teaching in San Francisco as well as across the USA and Europe. And in case you think this is all New Age, California, touchy-feely, 800 years ago Master Eihei Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Japanese Soto-Zen school, wrote a cookbook in which he taught that it is possible to discover Buddha in even the simplest of kitchen duties, such as washing rice or kneading dough, and so reflect on one’s own actions and behavior in the world.

“Select the rice and prepare the vegetables by yourself with your own hands, watching closely with sincere diligence. You should not attend to some things and neglect or be slack with others for even one moment. Do not give away a single drop from within the ocean of virtues; you must not fail to add a single speck on top of the mountain of good deeds.”
From “Instructions for the Cook” by Zen master Dogen, 1238 AD.

Review of the Movie is found here http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=12,4131,0,0,1,0