After her early morning meditation practice and breakfast, she tends to her garden inside Baekyangsa, a temple at the scenic Naejangsan National Park, south of Seoul.
The air is filled with the scent of blooming coriander flowers. A wild deer nibbles on the leaves in the garden.
The eggplants and green peppers are growing. The cabbages she planted in the winter are plump and ready to be harvested.
“It is beautiful because it has a lot of energy — it has grown through the cold winter,” the monk tells CNN Travel through a translator, pulling her palms apart to demonstrate the size of this year’s cabbages.
The accidental star chef
Jeong Kwan devoted herself to Buddhism when she was 17 years old.
Courtesy Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants
Yet little has changed in her world.
“I am extremely honored to receive the Icon Award… As you already know, I am a monk, not a trained chef. It’s wonderful to hear that people all around the world are interested in Korean cuisine,” says Jeong Kwan.
“Even with such accolades, I need to stay humble and not let pride into my heart. Genuine sincerity is how I greet every person I meet.”
The chef devoted herself to Buddhism in 1974, though says she still feels like a teenager at heart — even if her age and her spirituality have grown.
Unlike many, she already had a sense of the life she wishes to live at a young age. She was in elementary school when she told her father that when she grows up, she would live alone with nature.
When Jeong Kwan was 17 years old, her mother passed away.
“I grieved and after 50 days I went to a temple. There, I met other monks who became my new…
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