The International Love Cafe Vol.1

By Dannette Lambert

Dannette Lambert has been an ACT at Ono School for 3 years and is an essential member of the Gaijin community in Hiroshima. Always looking to bring people together, the International Love Cafe was conceived as a daydream to do just this, and was brought alive by a passion for wholesome vegetarian food and the desire to make peoole smile. Thanks Dannette for delivering love and compassion through wonderful tasty healthy food. You can taste the love in every bite. Shine on.

It began as an aside; a passing comment intermingled in a slew of conversation topics on a lazy Sunday past amongst friends. "You know, I'd like to have a vegetarian staurant, but only for a weekend." I threw it out just to see if might take up momentum. It passed with a few nods and appreciative looks from the other vegetarians in the room. We had all come to view Japan as a kind of vegetarian purgatory from which the only escape was the occasional gathering at the house of one of our compatriots who was kind enough to offer up their favorite vegan recipes for our consumption before sending us back out into the world of bonito flakes and 'you mean bacon is a meat?' But the statement failed to stimulate any real conversation and I was left to believe that my fantasy, although we may all have shared it, would remain just that.

However, a phone call from Diane the next day proved me wrong. Apparently, the idea of a weekend restaurant had lit a spark of enthusiasm in her head and by the time she had gotten around to calling me the next day she had already formulated a rough sketch of how, when and where we could make the fantasy a reality.

Thus, the International Love Cafe was born.

Fumiko, the owner of Manos Cafe, and her daughter Ayako, whom Diane had been teaching English to for some time, readily agreed to allow us to hold the event in their space. We decided that all of the proceeds would go to the Buddha Weeps Foundation, a charity I had been involved with for going on two years. Fumiko and Ayako donated the fliers and introduced us to a friend agreed to donate organic wine and juice. Caroline (goddess of curries and homemade bread) agreed to join in on the cooking. Yoko offered up her divine cakes and various other friends, acquaintances, and strangers (or, as Diane likes to say, friends we haven't met yet) offered their services, opinions and culinary comments. We settled on a menu, deciding that each of us would take responsibility for a meal. Diane chose a lunch of pita sandwiches and side salads, Caroline settled on Kabobs and curry, and I kept with my favorite Sunday brunch of tofu scrambler and pancakes. The days before the Love Cafe were spent in heated conference calls between Diane and I (Caroline seemed unfazed by the prospect of cooking for 30 people). We worried over reservations, seating arrangements, serving sizes, transportation issues and every other little detail you could think of when dealing with a restaurant. Mostly we spent our time speculating what would happen if the Love Cafe turned out to be an utter failure.

It was, in fact, a complete success. So much so that local bar owner Tsuyoshi Nitsuyuki, otherwise known as Bom, invited us to have a second Love Cafe at Koba. Basking in the glory of our previous success, we jumped at the chance to repeat it at our favorite chill spot.

Between the two International Love Cafes that we have held so far we have raised over 190,000 yen for the construction of a rehabilitation center for children exposed to radiation in Jadughoda, India. We have fed over 150 people. But beyond the numbers, we have all been left with a sense of satisfaction that I can honestly say I have never felt before in my life. As the name indicates, we created The International Love Cafe from the idea that to cook for someone, to provide them with the nourishment and pleasure that comes from a good meal without harming other creatures in the process, is one of the ultimate expressions of love. Food writer M.F.K. Fisher put it best when she said, "When I write of hunger, I am really writing of love and the hunger for it." This was our attempt to satisfy that hunger.

Since our last Love Cafe, offers to host more have been prolific. Bom has extended an open ended invitation to take over at Koba at anytime and the plans are now in the making to hold one there at the end of October. Unfortunately, although the temptation to stay in Japan was great, we lost Diane to the splendors of home and regularly open vegetarian restaurants. She plans to make the Love Cafe truly international by starting it up in England and holding hers at the same time that we hold ours. Future Love Cafes will be done with guest cooks, drawing on the unique resources of Hiroshima's vegetarian community. So, if love food and have a favorite vegan recipe that you want to share with the world, drop us a line.

And be on the lookout for the next International Love Cafe coming up in November.