The stories behind Simple Vegetarian (6)

During the early days at VSS,
there were very few exco members
who could speak fluent Mandarin.

Hence, along with Yueh Ting,
I frequently represent VSS at radio interviews.

It was from then on, I met 95.8FM DJ Wong Lee Jing,
who later proposed to get me on radio to teach vegetarian cooking!

I wasn't really good at vegetarian cooking that time,
altho' I already had some experience
demonstrating some simple veg cooking
at Thong Kheng Senior Activity Centre (Queen's Town).

All by good will of spreading vegetarianism (via the mass media),
I accepted the invitation/challenge to teach vegetarian cooking on air...

The cooking show was the very starting point for me
to type out all my recipes and organising them systematically.

Without Lee Jeng's special request,
the prototype for Simple Vegetarian wouldn't have ever existed.
-- but then, I still didn't think I would write a cookbook at all.

A year or two later,
I was recommended to submit a vegetarian recipe, on a monthly basis,
to For You Buddhist Magazine.
Tho' exciting, it was quite a commitment to me,
when I received such a request.
-- because, other than the ingredient list and method write-up,
I had to put together the pictures of the final product
as well as some description about each of the dishes.

During the process,
the editor then, Li Rong, was very supportive.
She gave me a lot of advice in term of photo taking and description writing.

Li Rong was probably the last critical person
who drifted me into compiling all the recipes write-up into a cookbook.
After submitting to For You mag for about a year or so,
I naturally thought I might as well publish a cookbook to
perpetuate the effort put in thus far.
Also, I believed it would be a convenient way to promote healthy
vegetarian diet "off hand"...

Towards the very last phase of the 'project',
it involved many other good friends,
to do proof-reading, translation, formating and even fund raising.

Throughout the entire process from conception to publishing,
to marketing, to revised digital-download version now,
I saw how so many things have to come together
just to make one event successful.
That experience made me feel grateful about just anything on Earth
and
validated an old saying : Nothing comes easy.

I hope that "Simple Vegetarian" now in digital format
could reach even more people and
propagate further the concept of healthy vegetarian eating.



Well regards,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}