20 sept 2025

Learn how to prepare a delicious and authentic vegetarian Indian meal in the Vermont Zen Center’s spacious kitchen.

Manju Selinger will guide you through the process of preparing the meal, which all will enjoy for lunch. With a cookbook of the recipes in hand and practical experience from the Zen Center’s cooks, you will be ready to prepare a delicious Indian meal for your family and friends. No cooking experience is necessary.

What You Will Learn

Participants will experience the mindfulness approach of working in a Zen kitchen. You will acquire hands-on knowledge in the preparation of a festive Indian meal, incorporating skills the teacher developed in her native land. There will be ample opportunities for discussing Indian food and meal preparation with Manju during a mid-morning break of chai and Indian snacks as well as during the lunch-time meal.

Festive Indian Meal Menu

 Palak Paneer
 Coconut Rice
 Garlic Naan
 Lassi or Chai

Thank you so much for the wonderful class, the gift of soan papdi, and for being so patient with all of my questions! I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to be greeted yesterday by your open-hearted, loving, welcoming energy (which surrounded us all through the day) . . . I was so moved. You set the table (literally and figuratively) with beauty, love, and light and invited us to enter, learn, and experience this world, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

—Mary Muncil, course participant

Instructor—Manju Selinger

Manju Selinger, a longtime member of the Vermont Zen Center, grew up in Northern India and came to the U.S. in 1993. Manju has been an enthusiastic cook for over 30 years, and loves to experiment with traditional dishes to suit the nutritional needs of her family.

Manju incorporates Ayurvedic principles of food combining, cooking methods, and the use of complementary herbs and spices to enhance, counteract, or balance both the flavors and the effects of different foods on a particular type of body and mind.