The Dream Kitchen: Producing Srila Prabhupada’s Secret Weapon

One of my favorite stories from HG Harivilas Pr. is how he converted a bum in Berkeley CA into a advanced devotee who now lives and preaches vigorously in Vrindavan. He used to distribute Prasadam to bums and neo-hippies who inhabited a rather unsavory public park in Berkeley called People’s Park in the nineties. One of the filthiest denizens of this park was a character that never talked much and seemed quite averse to personal hygiene. It was a rather repulsive task for Harivilas Pr. to provide prasadam to this particular bum. Little by little, he noticed a series of changes. The bum started looking less like one, started talking to him, and finally started attending programs at the local Iskcon temple. Finally he requested to live in the temple. Anyway to cut a long story short, this devotee is currently a well known preacher and book distributor in Vrindavan. This amazing story has always stuck in my mind because Harivilas Pr. ends it with a footnote: Srila Prabhupada always said that Prasadam is our secret weapon.
The Project team, guided by Harivilas Pr. had obviously realized this fact. The plan for the new kitchen was drawn up with no expense spared to make it a full-scale commercial kitchen capable of producing large quantities of the secret weapon. I was talking to NSP in his house once and he told me he was in LA temple and noticed a culinary apparatus called the “halwa machine”. He was suitably impressed with it. The person at the LA temple mentioned to him that this machine could cook halwa for five hundred people in twenty minutes. This brought a little childlike enthusiasm in NSP. He was determined to have the “halwa machine” installed in the Sammamish temple. This piece of equipment, more soberly called a commercial grade griddle was put into the plan. This was not all – usually we do our groceries from the Chinese market in downtown Seattle because as Walmart has figured out, the Chinese people are innovative business-folks: they manage to sell everything at the lowest cost, including vegetables. These bulk-purchased vegetables in the existing temple were being squished into an ancient refrigerator which looked like it was a gift from the Salvation Army, or devotees were asked to stash a box of veggies into their home refrigerators. To avoid this ridiculous state of affairs, it was decided to put a ten by twelve feet walk-in cooler. Also many other gadgets used for producing Prasadam staples were also put into plan like dough-maker, potato peeler and advanced exhaust systems.
We were having dinner at a local vegetarian restaurant one time, and NSP asked the son of the proprietor of the restaurant who was a young man who his equipment supplier was. This showed me how much he cared about saving the temple money; this kind of commitment and dedication in the service of Lord Krishna is very commendable. The Lord shows us the way, but we must be dedicated. Anyways he told me a couple of days later that he had called this supplier who happened to be a Vietnamese gentleman, Ken. During the conversation with Ken, NSP came to find out he was a Buddhist. NSP said we were building a temple and somehow he conveyed that our temple also will be used to worship Lord Buddha as he was one of the avatar forms of our Lord or some smoke and mirrors to that effect –and I don’t know how he pulled that bit – but all is well if it is in the service of the Lord. Ken was sufficiently moved spiritually to give us a huge discount on the kitchen equipment – such a discount was almost unheard of.

This is an account of some of the transactions between NSP and Kevin (I didn't really clean it up - the raw version sounded pretty funny)

NSP kept pestering Kevin (vietnamese) guy for all the kitchen equipment.
Finally agreed to give us everything at low price.
Kevin: Are u starting Indian restaurant?
NSP: No we are bulding Krishna Temple
Kevin: Krishna means Kristian? (his pronunication was quite difficult to follow)
NSP: No, not Kristian, Krishna!
Kevin : What is Krishna?
NSP : Showed plates of BG book - Plate of Dashavatar: Showed Krishna - Kevin noticed Buddha's plate
After that he says in Broken English: "From you no profit from me"
After 1-2 days he came back with a quote of $49K (NSP had got quote for $125K cheapest - from companies with slick salesmen)
Kevin's people also did a walk-in cooler - very expensive usually - kevin's men did for $5500 installed. This included all the temperature control and lights.
Kevin also helped us save money - he advised NSP to use a $1K sink made in his fab plant instead of John Bush.
NSP also went to Kevin's retail outlet - Krishna inspired him to give several boxes of stainless steel spoons, ceramic dinner plates and cups all for free. The plates said in chinese - Hope, Peace and Prosperity. These are the oriental designed china plates that we use in VCC. There were some other items like strainers and other kitchen accoutrements that he asked his daughter to give NSP 50% off.
NSP also got some of the steel shelves from the fab plant of Kevin. It saved a lot of money over the HVAC company who charge a lot.