Chinese-style Broccoli & Tofu

After attending the opening of the Lonquan Buddhist Temple in Utrecht in December, we were invited to join lunch at the nearby Chinese restaurant. Rev. Xianda explained that the restaurant had never really cooked Buddhist vegetarian before, so they had brought in “a specialist” to come and help them. Temple-style vegetarian cuisine in China is quite […]

Boiled Fruit Cake

Now and then my mother sends recipe clippings from magazines that she thinks might be of interest. This Boiled Fruit Cake originates from one of those clippings that had worked its way to the back of the kitchen drawer, almost lost and barely remembered. I found it wedged between the Tenzo notebooks and random slips of paper scrawled with recipe measurements. The […]

Persimmon (Kaki) Chutney

For many a year, persimmons seemed out of reach. They were confined to a beautiful calligraphy called Six Persimmons (a 13th-century Chinese painting by the monk, Muqi Fachang), creations from a distant land where I could only imagine how they might taste or look like in real life. The first occasion I had to relish one was in […]