Tag Archives: Dolma Ling kitchen

Helping the Nuns: A Little Goes a Very Long Way!

Rice

Rice is a staple food in all the Tibetan Buddhist nunneries we support in India. One of the most common meals for Tibetans in exile is rice and dal. Here’s a recipe for you. This simple vegetarian dish is nutritious and inexpensive.

Just $5 will buy about 14 pounds or 6 kilos of rice. Each month at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute, the nuns use about 1,411 lbs or 640 kg of rice to feed the 270 nuns plus staff. The cost of the rice for the whole month is $507.

$10 buys 28 pounds or 13 kg of rice

A nun on kitchen duty at Dolma Ling checks rice. Photo courtesy of Brian Harris.

Flour

Flour, like rice, is used daily at the nunneries to make bread, noodles, and steamed buns. A donation of $5 will purchase 31 pounds (14kg) of flour and the nuns use over 1,000 pounds of flour per month.

$13 provides a day’s flour for about 300 nuns and staff

Tibetan Buddhist nuns in kitchen using flour Brian Harris copy

A few years ago donors helped the nuns purchase dough-making machines. Until then all the kneading had to be done by hand.

Potatoes

All the nunneries have a vegetarian diet and potatoes are important staple food. The nuns at Dolma Ling use 600 kilos or 1,323 pounds of potatoes a month and the cost is just $108.

$5 buys 60 lbs or 28 kg of potatoes

The nuns at Dolma Ling use over 1,000 pounds of potatoes a month. That’s a lot of peeling! $5 buys about 28 lbs of potatoes.

Onions

Some Buddhists follow a strict diet that avoids aliums including onions, garlic, and chives but Tibetan Buddhists use onions and garlic in their cooking, especially in exile in India and Nepal. India is one of the largest producers and consumers of onions, however the price of onions fluctuates.

$5 can buy over 50 lbs of onions

Tibetan Buddhist nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute chopping onions ⓒ Robin Groth

Other necessities at the nunneries include cooking oil, tomatoes, other vegetables, dals of various types, thukpa (noodles) and canisters of cooking gas.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns cooking at Dolma Ling

Tibetan Buddhist nuns on kitchen duty at Dolma Ling. Photo by Brian Harris. Thank you for supporting the nuns!

Thank you again for helping the nuns!

A little goes a long way

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A little goes a long way to help Tibetan Buddhist nuns in India.

In this blog post, we want to share with you the cost of basic food items at the largest nunnery we support in India so that you can see the impact of your support. In this blog, we take you inside the kitchen at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute, home to 347 nuns plus staff.

Rice

Rice is a staple food for the nuns in all the Tibetan Buddhist nunneries we support in India. One of the most common meals for Tibetans in exile is rice and dal. This simple dish is nutritious and inexpensive. A huge bag of rice costs 640 Indian rupees or just under $9. Each day at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute, the nuns use about 1.5 bags of rice to feed close to 400 nuns and staff.

$12/day feeds rice to 350 nuns

A nun on kitchen duty at Dolma Ling checks rice. Photo courtesy of Brian Harris.

Flour

Flour, like rice, is used daily at the nunneries to make bread, noodles, and steamed buns. An 88 pound (40 kg) bag of flour costs just over $12 and is enough to feed over 300 people.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns in kitchen using flour Brian Harris copy

This summer, donors kindly helped the nuns at the two largest nunneries we support, Dolma Ling and Shugsep, purchase dough-making machines. Until now, the nuns would have to knead dough by hand.

$12/day provides 350 nuns with flour

Potatoes

All the nunneries have a vegetarian diet and potatoes are important staple food. Just a small monthly donation to the Tibetan Nuns Project feeds hundreds of nuns in a day. For instance, a 110 lb (50 kg) bag of potatoes costs just $14 and will feed a lot of nuns. We are extremely grateful to everyone who sponsors a nun and also to those donors who give monthly at any amount they choose. As you see, even $5 a month helps feed hundreds of nuns.

$14 buys 110 lbs of potatoes

cost of food, Tibetan Buddhist nun at Dolma Ling peeling potatoes, cost of basic food items, peeling potatoes

A nun on kitchen duty at Dolma Ling Nunnery pauses from peeling potatoes. There are about 350 nuns at the nunnery so that means a lot of peeling! Photo by the Dolma Ling Media Nuns.

Onions

Some Buddhists follow a strict diet that avoids aliums including onions, garlic, and chives. However, Tibetan Buddhists do use onions and garlic in their cooking, especially in exile in India and Nepal. A 55 lb bag of onions (25 kg) costs $10.

$10 buys 55 lbs of onions

Tibetan Buddhist nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute chopping onions ⓒ Robin Groth

With COVID, the nuns have not been shopping in the same way as before because it was unsafe to go to the market. Instead, during the lockdown times, they had supplies such as vegetables delivered to the gates of the nunnery where they would be sanitized and then stored in the storage room shown below.

cost of basic food, vegetables in storeroom at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute copy

Vegetables in the storeroom at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute in India. The nunnery is home to about 350 Tibetan Buddhist nuns and they have a vegetarian diet, so lots of vegetables are needed.

Thank you again for helping the nuns!

a little goes a long way, Dolma Ling Nunnery

Bags of vegetables outside the gate of Dolma Ling Nunnery during the COVID lockdown in 2020

Happy Nuns in the Dolma Ling Kitchen

Helping the Nuns Cook Rice Safely

new electric rice cooker at Dolma Ling Nunnery

“We are very happy with the new rice cooker. Now we just have to wash the rice, put it in the rice cooker, add water, close the lid, and press the cook button. So easy and safe! We don’t have to worry about the hot rice water,” said one nun. It also saves on fuel costs and produces better, more nutritious rice.

Venerable Samten Dolma, the nun in charge of the kitchen this year, said, “Before, I had to check regularly to see if the rice was cooked perfectly or not. Now, with the new rice cooker, I don’t have to worry about rice being undercooked or soggy.”

Tibetan Buddhist nun cooking rice at Dolma Ling

“The rice is so delicious now and every time it is evenly cooked.” The new rice cooker can cook up to 77 pounds of rice safely and efficiently. The nuns eat rice every day, so it’s a huge help to them.

“Every day five nuns have to prepare a day’s meal,” said a nun on kitchen duty. “In the morning while preparing lunch, we used to have two nuns in charge of the rice and three nuns to cut and prepare the lunchtime vegetables. But now, with the rice cooker, it is so much easier. All five nuns can cut and prepare vegetables for lunch. While we eat our lunch, we can use the dough machine to prepare the dough for the evening. Now we have more time on our hands.”

With the old way of cooking rice, the nuns were always in danger of being scalded by the boiling water and steam. Detail of photo by Brian Harris.

Before the nuns got the rice cooker, it took a long time to cook rice in a huge caldron over one of the two large gas burners. When the rice was half cooked, the excess water had to be poured off – a very risky operation. It took two strong nuns to pick up the pot and carry it across the kitchen to the drain. This operation had to be done quickly and carefully to avoid scalding from the boiling water and losing the steam.

Having the new electric rice cooker means that the rice cooks more evenly and keeps more of its nutritional qualities so it is better for the nuns’ health.

The New Dough Maker

Each day the nuns on kitchen duty prepare traditional Tibetan bread and steamed buns for hundreds of nuns. Until now, the nuns had to mix the dough by hand which was very labor intensive and less hygienic than using a machine.

before and after, Tibetan Buddhist nuns using new dough machine

“The dough machine saves us a lot of time and energy! I never knew it was this easy to knead dough.” The nuns bought a 55-lb (25 kg) capacity dough maker. Before photos by Brian Harris; after photos by Dolma Ling Media Nuns.

On special occasions, the nuns make paratha (fried flatbreads) and khapse which are fried Tibetan biscuits. At Losar, Tibetan New Year, every member of the nunnery gets a large bag of khapse to celebrate Tibetan New Year so preparing large quantities is a great deal of work.

making dough, Dolma Ling Nunnery, inside the kitchen at Dolma Ling Nunnery

Before, as in this photo, the nuns had to knead dough by hand. Now mixing dough by machine takes only 15 to 20 minutes, so it is much easier to prepare multiple batches for bread, buns, and noodles. Normally the nuns up to 20 kg (44 pounds) of flour at a time.

New Refrigerator Saves Costs and Prevents Waste

Dolma Ling’s refrigerator was very old and broke down in the spring. Thanks to our supporters, the nuns were able to buy a new fridge in time to store food during the summer heat.

A nun shows the new refrigerator at Dolma Ling

When the old refrigerator broke down, you kindly helped the nuns buy a new one, just in time to keep food from spoiling during the intense summer heat. The temperature in the kitchen regularly reached 97 degrees.

The nuns follow a vegetarian diet. Without a fridge, vegetables, fruits, milk, butter, and tofu quickly rot. It is not possible for the nuns to get fresh supplies of everything daily so they need to buy for more than one day. They are happy to have the fridge to safely store perishable vegetables and fruit to avoid wastage and save money.

Without the fridge, they would be restricted in what they could buy and their diet would have been more monotonous. Especially during the pandemic, everyone looks forward to lunchtime. Now, the nuns can use different vegetables such as tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, and spinach which need to be kept chilled. With the new fridge, the nuns and staff are healthier and happier!

Thank you for your support!