NEW YORK - Under the glare of fluorescent lights, a metal hot plate glinted and hissed. Rajagopal Vaidyanathan sprinkled green chilies and coriander leaves liberally on the surface, and then poured rice batter to a consistency thin as paper. The basement restaurant was quiet in the mid-morning lull.

Upstairs, in the temple of the elephant God Ganesha in Flushing, Queens, the Gods were satiated. At 6:30 a.m., the three cooks on the morning shift had prepared food called prasad, which the priests had offered to the Gods with prayers.

Then Vaidyanathan and two others - Lakshmy Narayanan, and Mahalingam Chandrashekaran - had started cooking for the temple restaurant where, amazingly for New York, nothing on the menu costs over $7.

The temple cooks enjoy isolated lives in New York, unmindful of the economic recession that worries the rest of the country. Their thoughts are back home in India with their families, and with the past they left behind to come to a new land to practice their age-old craft. They are part of a lineage of cooks and priests who have been toiling for the Gods for generations. They came from lush temple towns in Tamil Nadu with names like Poompuhar ("where the Cauvery River meets the ocean"), Kumbakonam ("temple domes in four corners"), Mailaduthurai ("where the peacock dances") with histories linked to ancient Tamil royal dynasties.

Vaidyanathan moved to an oven where stacks of fluffy idlis, or rice pancakes, were cooking. He sprinkled water on the pans and expertly tossed towels from the idli pan into a distant metal bowl. A minute later, he was back at the hot plate, scraping the thin rice crepes called dosas onto plastic plates for a hungry customer.

Vaidyanathan, 48, was born in Poompuhar, a port town that was the trading post of Indian kings in the second century A.D. He is the grandson of a cook who owned a restaurant called Durga-bhavan ("home of Goddess Durga") that still stands in his hometown.

Cooking was in his blood, but poverty dogged him for most of his life. Vaidyanathan was soft-spoken and revealed his misfortunes in a matter-of-fact voice.

"I had a son who expired at age 11," he said in Tamil. His son, Rajesh, had leukemia. Vaidyanathan did not have money to treat him. "At that time, I had nothing. Then God helped me and I came here," he adds. The temple recruited in 2005.

"Waves in the ocean keep splashing," he said. "The ocean too is water, the same water as in tank and lake. But how come only the ocean has the power to create waves? [God] is a power."

Upstairs, the god Ganesha stood four feet tall, behind a curtain in the inner sanctum of the temple. A priest in saffron chanted the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of Hinduism, his stentorian voice drowned out by the thundering sounds of the jackhammer in an extension of the temple under construction.

"Oye! The fuse has gone again," he shouted in Tamil as the temple plunged into darkness.

The curtain opened, and the head priest Raju waved oil lamps. The leaping fire cast a golden glow in the dark. Finally, the strains of the Rig Veda could be heard asking the Gods for long life, good progeny, and healthy cows.

"Have you eaten?" Raju asked a visitor. "You should go to the canteen." His pride was justified: the Village Voice rated the basement canteen one of the best Indian restaurants in New York in 2008. "It's like if you go to a black church, they have soul food after and it's the best food," said Reena Temburni, 23, a devotee eating at the restaurant. "It's always made with love and blessings of God."

The canteen was a spare hall with plywood wooden tables and black metal chairs scattered throughout. From behind a metal counter, Lakshmy Narayanan, 36, a NY Mets Cap perched on his curly hair, shouted out an order of spiced vegetable rice, "Bisibelabath!"

Narayanan had been cooking in temples all over South India when the Flushing temple recruited him and flew him to New York, where he lives much as he did in Chembai. Even as India becomes increasingly westernized, the men hold onto their culture tightly. They fear American culture to some extent, and will never bring their families to the United States.

"The cultures are very different," said Mahaligam Chandrashekar, 48, the third cook on the morning shift. "To gain something you have to lose something else."

He flipped open his Motorola Razr cell phone and displayed the photo of his wife, a strikingly fair lady in a blue sari.

"That's why I go through all this trouble," he said.