About » The Joy of an Empty Pot

About Rev. David McKinney:

Head cook Rev. David McKinney

Hello,
My name is Rev. David McKinney. I have been the head cook at the Vichara Buddhist Monastery since 1972. Thank you for stopping by. This blog makes it possible for us to share our vegetarian recipes with the rest of the world.

The monks here, and many of our members, take a vow of harmlessness. This is why we follow a meatless diet. A lacto-ovo vegetarian diet to be precise. We do not feel that an animal should have to give up its life just to provide us with nourishment. However, we do eat eggs and dairy products because the animals do not have to perish in order for us to use them. Although we are not motivated by health reasons, the result of this practice is that we follow a fairly healthy diet. We probably fall into the 80/20 category. About 80% of what we eat is very healthy and about 20% is not so healthy. The recipes here include very quick and easy to a few very complicated; very healthy to not so healthy; gluten-free to gluten intense; bland to very spicy; and drab to very colorful. We rarely use expensive exotic ingredients which means that most of our food is budget friendly. Basically, I will try just about anything as long as it does not involve meat and does not cost a fortune. So if I have a niche it would be “a little bit of everything.”

A Little History:

Rev. McKinney with basket of freshly picked corn.

Rev. McKinney with freshly picked corn.

The Vichara Monastery was started in the Fall of 1972. So I have been the head cook almost from the beginning. Yes, I know. That is a very, very, long time. I had never planned on it being this way. I thought that I would spend a few years at the monastery and then move on. As you can see, that never happened.

In addition to working in the kitchen, I had other responsibilities. I also did a lot of the work in the vegetable garden. The picture you see here was taken at some time in the mid-1970s. Yes, that is me picking fresh corn. How the time flies. Since I have had some experience with gardening, I may also include gardening tips in some of the posts.

The Vichara Buddhist Monastery:

Zendo Main Residence at Vichara Monastery.

The Zendo, the main Residence at Vichara Monastery, during winter.

The Vichara Monastery is located in the Sierra-Nevada foothills near Coulterville, California. Yosemite National Park is nearby. The elevation here is about 3500 feet. Visitors who come during the summer frequently ask us if we get any snow in the winter. So you can see here that the answer is “Yes.” Some years it snows more than others, but we generally get at least a little snow.

About the Cookbook:

Over the years we have shared these recipes with our members and anyone else who was interested. In 2016 we published a cookbook, The Joy of an Empty Pot, so that everyone could have easy access to our recipes. It has a plastic comb binding so that it can lay flat on a counter, which makes it easy to read. It also has a hardbound cover for durability. And finally, we were able to print the title on the comb binding which makes it easy to find on a shelf with other books. This blog was started so that we could reach a larger audience beyond the cookbook sales.

Buster the black and spotted Catahoula smiling

Buster the cake lover.

This is Buster (12/1993 – 7/20/2006) the cake loving Catahoula who was especially fond of Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.