Our guest is Amanda Cohen who is the chef and owner of Dirt Candy in Lower East Side and co-owner of Lekka Burger in Tribeca in Manhattan. Amanda has been cooking vegetarian food for the last 20 years, since when vegetarians were in the absolute minority. She is a James Beard Award-nominated chef and definitely a pioneer of the vegetable-forward movement in the US. Amanda visited Japan in December 2019 to discover vegetarian food culture in the country. Japan is a Buddhist society and had the heavily restrictive meat consumption policy that lasted 1200 years until the end of 19th century. In this episode, we will discuss what Amanda discovered in Japan, how she applies the discoveries to her dishes in New York City, what vegetarian cuisine means in our modern society and much, much more!!!