Preeti Bhojanam- Part 2 - The Faces behind the Feast

The Faces behind the Feast.

Southward bound: Last Sunday, we decided to travel south and offer the culinary specialities of South India to the Lord and the devotees. The menu included Idli, Sambar, Tamarind rice, Coconut chutney, Papad and the dessert ...Rava Kesari or Semolina halva with saffron,from which it takes on the name Kesari (for the Ramayan fans, please do not mistake this with the monkey king). We don't have a temple yet and use the kitchen of another temple to make our bhoga every Sunday, so the pictures are not of a typical ISKCON kitchen. Here is the long and short of it.

Our Head Cook for the day-Meenakshi Mata.

The sidekicks oops, I mean side-cooks

Prema Prada dd, Sudevi dd and Saahithya, We don't like cutting boards as you can see.

Manu Bhai and Madhu kaki- The temple's resident's cooks, doing their (Gujarati) cooking for Dwarakadeesh.

Our local Aindra Prabhu (of Kirtan fame)- Sravanananda Prabhu.

Sauna in motion

Too many cooks ...

Sundarananda Prabhu, Gaurav Prabhu and Gayatri Mata.

IDDLI- filling in the moulds

Our Make shift altar.

Maha prasade Govinde....

Nothing tastes like Prasadam!

"The chanting of the holy name," Srila Prabhupada recommended, "should be heard as far as possible from the lips of a pure devotee." One might ask a similar question to yours re. the chanting of the pure Holy Name of the Lord, as with prasadam.
When an offering is made to the Supreme Lord, He accepts the offering due to the love and devotion that has gone into the offering. As He states in the Bhagavad-gita, ye yatha mam prapadyante (Bg 4.11): "As one approaches Me, I reciprocate proportionately." To the degree of devotion and care with which an offering is prepared, and and then brings the offering to Him with sincere devotion, to that degree Krishna relishes that offering. Thus, when a qualified and pure devotee cooks in a thoroughly clean atmosphere and cleansed consciousness, the prasadam correspondingly becomes that much more transcendentally enjoyed by Krishna. Conversely to the degree one is not purified, Krishna does not accept the offering. Inquiries into the absolute- Digest 46 B HH Romapada Swami