I surely can’t claim to be calm in the kitchen: extra virgin splattered on the counter top, an onion slice burned onto the range, and our new addition — a *mouse* — running out from underneath the oven. (Maybe we’ll be lucky enough for 80P to take an artsy photo of the critter.)

Regardless, with the craziness of the holidays already suffocating us, maybe it’s time to combine some deep breathing and fine chopping.

Check out Kim O’Donnel’s take on “How to Cook Your Life,” a documentary about “nothing and everything.”

The camera follows Brown over a two-week period in 2006, while he leads Zen and cooking workshops in Austria and in California. On the surface, the movie is all about Brown, an ordained Zen priest and the author of several cookbooks, including “The Tassajara Bread Book,” (and a founding owner of Greens, the legendary vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco), a premise that may bore those on a cinematic diet of shoot ‘em-up meat and potatoes. But if you’re the kind of movie goer who chews slowly and mindfully, it’s an enchanting, thought-provoking film, asking us to slow down, and yes, smell those onions.

Opening December 7th