New Season of Chef’s Table Kicks Off with Vegan Chef

The new season of popular Netflix original series Chef’s Table debuted with an episode that featured vegan chef Jeong Kwan. Kwan left her home without any possessions at the age of 17 to join the Baekyangsa Temple in South Korea—where she has lived for more than 40 years—to become a monk. Kwan began cooking what she refers to as “temple food”—plant-based dishes made from ingredients collected from a lush garden Kwan maintains outside of the monastery. The cinematically stunning episode features Kwan preparing traditional kimchi—sans fish products—using time to ferment the cabbage in an underground urn. World famous chef Eric Ripert invited Kwan to prepare a vegan tasting menu at his award-winning New York restaurant Le Bernardin during the taping of the episode. “An incredible teacher, [Kwan] is an extremely talented cook,” Ripert said. “Her food is not only healthy and mindful, but delicious.” In addition to this series, plant-based cooking is becoming a hot topic through shows such as A&E’s Plant-based by Nafsika and upcoming Z Network series The Big Fat Truth—produced by JD Roth of The Biggest Loser fame.