Buddha's Bowl is professional catering outfit, providing quality vegetarian food at large events in South Australia. It is a fundraising arm of Buddha House, and is staffed by volunteers.

Long time Buddha's Bowl Coordinator, Will Abram reports on a bit of Bowl history ...

"From humble beginnings as a chai stall at the Goolwa Folk Festival in 1990, Buddha's Bowl has become a vital part of big Adelaide events such as WOMAD. After success at Goolwa, Brenton Hill, who had been involved in organising the Dalai Lama's Adelaide visit in 1992, saw the great potential of WOMAD and applied for one of the catering stalls. At this point I became involved and we extended the menu beyond chai and cake to serving good quality, vegetarian meals using the best available ingredients.

"However, our first experience began in utter chaos when on the Friday night of the first WOMAD we ran out of food, having under-estimated our popularity. Some pretty quick improvisation, midnight shopping and phone calls for more volunteers remedied the problem. This then made us aware that a vegetarian food stall could be a significant fundraiser for Buddha House.

"We first used the name "Buddha's Bowl" the following year at the 1993 WOMAD and had some beautiful signs made for the occasion by Dale Dorje. Since then many volunteers have come to help (far too many to name). In particular, invaluable support from our almost resident chef, Nick Vanzo.

"Nick has not only cooked hundreds of litres of curry over the last seven years, but has also educated many people on the various facets of food preparation, health and safety issues, and generally how to run a catering operation out of a three metre tent.

"Over the last three years, Robyne McKay's contribution has been invaluable, co-ordinating volunteers and restructuring the whole process, to make things run a lot smoother.

"The most common feedback we get from the many people who have worked on the stall is that apart from the opportunity of meeting other students of Buddha House in a very different context, it's great fun with all of us working so hard together. One of the most amazing things to me is the number of people who are not students at Buddha House who come and help on the stall.

Professionals at work

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