A jewel… where??

On the library shelves at the Bristol Buddhist Centre I came across a book which demanded to be read. It’s called:

Vimalabandhu lived as a small child in a city in Indonesia called Sukabumi, which apparently means land of happiness. Even as a four-year old he was fascinated by food and cooking… and as an adult he became a cook after first becoming a physicist… his story is fascinating and I think most people would enjoy reading about his life from Indonesia to working  in a vegetarian café in Manchester

However, this book has a lot more to it than that.

This is an unconventional book on cooking. It is not a recipe book although there is advise on how to create your own recipes. Rather, it is a guide to discover the Jewel, the most precious thing in the ingredients, in the act of cooking and in our life. The book relates to ideas and ideals to our cooking using examples and metaphors  to make it tangibly alive. It invites us to cook with our whole being, with our sense of wonder and adventure.

It is a great read, amusing, thought-provoking, interesting… what else would you expect with chapters entitled ‘The Resurrection of Spinach & Co’, ‘The Buddha in the Aubergine’, ‘Lasagne Beyond the Pigeon Hole’, and ‘The Thousand Faces of Cabbage, for example! It’s a short book, not even eighty pages long, but well worth the read!