ITHACA, NY—In anticipation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ithaca in October, a special screening of Doris Doerrie’s “How to Cook Your Life,” a public forum on Zen and the art of cooking, and three area cooking luminaries discussing Zen and food will take place at Cinemapolis on Saturday, Oct. 6. Offered as a sneak preview in advance of the film’s official release, this special screening will begin at 7:15 p.m., with the other events to follow. Advance tickets may be purchased at Cinemapolis for $8.

 

“How to Cook Your Life” is an offering of the Dharma Cinema, a community-wide collaboration between Ithaca College’s Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF), 7th Art Corporation, Cornell Cinema and Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies. For a full listing of the Dharma Cinema offerings, visit http://cinema.cornell.edu/series_earlyfall07/dharma.html.

 

“How a person goes about dealing with the ingredients for his meals says a lot about him,” said Doerrie. “‘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 there is: existing in the here and now. And cooking is also an integral part of this.”

 

In her film, Doerrie 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. Doerrie catches Brown in culinary action at various venues in Europe and the United States, including the Tassajara Mountain Center, where the younger Brown began cooking as a self-described “arrogant, bossy, short-tempered know-it-all” and from where he first conceived and wrote his landmark “Tassajara Bread Book.” Brown eventually united his love of cooking with the teachings of Zen priest and mentor Suzuki Roshi, whose early advice was, “when you wash the rice, wash the rice, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots, when you stir the soup, stir the soup.”

 

Doerrie peppers her profile of Brown with pungent side trips, including an apparently homeless woman who claims to be the sole proprietor of what she called Back Door Catering. Translated, she lives exclusively off of dumpster diving, and, at one point, coaxes Doerrie’s soundman to use his boom to snag a high branch full of figs.

 

A post-screening public forum on Zen and the art of cooking will be moderated by Jodi Cohen, professor of speech communication at Ithaca College, and will feature three of Ithaca’s food and cooking stars: Judy Barringer, one of the founders of Moosewood Restaurant and currently the colony chef at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts artists’ colony; Julie Jordon, who operated the Cabbagetown Café for 18 years and authored several vegetarian cookbooks; and Gary Redmond, operator of Regional Access, a food wholesaler and supplier of organic, local and regional products.

 

The award-winning Doerrie and her unique take on life as seen through a camera lens needs no introduction to fans of contemporary German cinema. Her previous credits include “Men” (Maenner), “Am I Beautful?” (Bin ich schoen?) and “Naked” (Nackt).

 

Up-to-date information on this screening is available at www.cinemapolis.org. For additional information, contact Patricia Zimmermann, patty@ithaca.edu or Tom Shevory, shevory@ithaca.edu, codirectors of Ithaca College’s Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.