At Kajitsu, Nishihara strives to showcase seasonal vegetables with a balance of flavors inspired by shojin cuisine, but achieved only by adhering to certain philosophies of his own. There are two important rules to cooking with produce, he explained through a translator. Rule number one: Believe in the vegetable. Rule number two: Do not believe in the vegetable.

The tenets seem contradictory, but they suit Nishihara. "I am crazy," he teased the audience right after proclaiming his rules. But his reasoning must work; after all, it's this kind of kitchen logic that earned him two Michelin stars this month.

Besides koans of vegetable belief, Nishihara's kitchen philosophy also incorporates a vegetarian adaptation of the butcher's snout-to-tail attitude. Call it flesh-to-peel: when faced with a vegetable, he knows how to use it all. Talking about simmering the middle part of a daikon in three different stocks to make his furofuki daikon dish, he pulled out the root and performed an on-the-spot demo of an edible tribute to fall. With his knife he peeled the cream-colored skin into a sheet like a scroll of parchment, then rolled it up and sliced it paper thin before placing the translucent rounds onto a plate decked with burnt-orange and gold-colored hibiscus leaves; finishing it off were the pickled leaves of the daikon. Nothing went to waste.

For the home cook, Nishihara had related advice: Get face-to-face with your veggies. Think about what you will cook, consider the ingredients before you, and then "All the effort you put in will be given back to you in a gift of deliciousness."