Embodied Cooking Classes are Finally Here!
Please join me on Patreon for Embodied Cooking Club!
The big news is that I am launching my Embodied Cooking Classes today, on Patreon!
So please do check it out and sign up here! For just $5/month you will have access to a weekly, live-streamed class and the video and archives if you cannot make the live-stream. You can ask questions and share.
The first live-stream will be next Tuesday, October 11th at 1 pm EST and every Tuesday after that. And the first recipe we will be working with is the beautiful Warm October Lentil Salad from this very newsletter!
The embodied part of these cooking classes is what makes them different from other classes you may have tried. Here we are not trying to produce perfection, we are only trying to slow down and be with our senses and the full experience of cooking. In paying deep attention to ourselves and our process we will slow our nervous system down, relax, and notice the pleasant feelings, sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and even tactile feelings that surround us as we cook. Regardless of the end result of the cooking process, we will always have this experience. And I know that when we cook this way our skills will naturally progress as we learn to trust our senses and build our intuition. I am so excited to take this journey with you and I hope you’ll come along.
My dream is to build a community that supports each other to grow, to learn to release the stress and anxiety we carry in our daily lives, to learn to nourish ourselves, and to find pleasure in our daily routines.
Please do join and share this offering with your friends, grandparents, or anyone you think needs it!
Reflections on Eating Simply
This month I have started a Yoga Teacher Training and I am loving it and learning so much. In the training we are advancing along the classical Hatha yoga path which means we start the first month by cleansing and renewing the body to get it ready to receive all the goodness of the universe. As a result, I have been eating a limited variety of foods: mainly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lentils, and beans—no caffeine, alcohol, or sugar. We do not eat onion and garlic or chiles either because these foods are traditionally believed to excite the body and we are trying to reach a kind of calm, natural stasis.
Oddly for a woman in our diet culture, I have never before chosen to restrict my diet other than my many years of vegetarianism, which I feel is different, because it was not about weight-loss. This feels similar in the sense that it is completely voluntary. I don’t feel restricted by anything other than my own desire to experience what it is like to live in a body that is only processing these very simple foods.I feel like a detective— a detective who is investigating herself.
Things I have noticed during this cleanse in no particular order:
I get hungry a lot so have to eat more frequently.
I usually reward myself with food and use it as motivation, but now I am finding other ways to reward myself or simply notice I want a reward for something that is really its own reward.
I noticed myself constantly wanting to buy a coffee or something while out, to heighten pleasurable moments or limit difficult feelings.
I typically food to numb myself and push through difficult feelings, but now that there is nowhere for the feelings to hide I am processing more in the moment.
My daughter LOVES to share food with me and has a hard time when she cannot.
I eat my daughter’s leftovers constantly and now that I cannot there is a lot of waste.
I have been paying attention to the small details of my food like the pleasure of crunch.
I have been enjoying the calm process of making each meal, trusting it will be enough.
I can easily spiral into thinking that I can’t keep this up. When that happens, I focus on just right now.
I get grumpy when I am hungry and I may not want to share the food I can eat with others out of a feeling of scarcity.
I miss putting hot sauce on everything.
I could go on!
I can’t exactly say that I recommend this experience, but it is definitely interesting and I feel I am learning new ways to enjoy my life, motivate myself, and find pleasure and peace. Which is, I think, always the case when we ask ourselves to do something outside our usual patterns. Now, on to the recipe!
Warm October Lentil Salad
Serves 3 to 4
I served this salad to an amazing group of women I hosted recently for a yoga and cooking mini-retreat. It was delicious and nourishing and also perfect for a chilly overcast day in early October. The warm lentils make it cozy, like a warm hug for your belly.
TL;DR: Cook the lentils with the celery, carrots, and peppers. Add the kale, lettuce, avocado, and pear to a large bowl and dress with salt and lime juice. Mix the warm lentils in the salad and top with cashews and sesame oil.
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 rib celery, finely chopped
2 small carrots, finely chopped
½ bell pepper, finely chopped
Fine sea salt, to taste
1 cup dried black lentils
1 bunch dinosaur kale, chopped
A few handfuls of lettuce or other greens, chopped
2 small or 1 large avocado, cut into small pieces
Juice of 1 or 2 limes
1 large or 2 small ripe pears, chopped
¼ cup roasted cashews, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon sesame oil, for finishing (optional)
In a cast iron or other non-stick skillet, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the celery, carrots, and pepper and stir to coat in oil. Let the veggies cook for 2 to 3 minutes, then sprinkle with some salt and leave for another minute. Add the black lentils to the skillet and stir. Cover with 3 cups of water and sprinkle in more salt. Bring the water to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer and let the lentils cook, uncovered, until the lentils are plump and cooked through and most of the water has evaporated, 20 to 25 minutes.
While the lentils cook, add the kale, lettuce, and avocado to a large bowl. Sprinkle salt and lime juice generously over the greens and avocado and mix with your hands. Taste and add more salt and lime if needed. Finally, add the pears to the bowl.
When the lentils are cooked, and still warm, add them to the salad and gently toss, adding more lime juice and salt as needed. Note that if there is still some water left in the lentils, use a slotted spoon to drain it off before adding them to the salad. Finally sprinkle cashews and a drizzle of sesame oil over everything and serve.
The Tangle Meditation
My daughter, Io, has long, fine hair. And she is a wild child extraordinaire. Loves to climb and play, dance and move in whatever way suits her. And I wouldn’t have her any other way.
But the result of these two truths means that every day she ends up with an almost dreadlock-like mass of tangles at the back and sides of her head. And guess what? She does not like having them brushed out. Not one bit! But she also loves her long hair and we simply have to take care of it.
A while back I found myself getting into a fight with her over and over about it. She didn’t want me to brush her hair and would scream and cry when I did it. I would feel increasingly horrible, like I was torturing my child and get more and more agitated with her, feeling like she was expressing her discomfort just to upset me. It was NOT a good dynamic. Then I would avoid brushing her hair or forget or run out of time and it would get so horrendously knotted that I would feel completely overwhelmed.
One day I decided to approach it differently. I asked Io to choose a time when she would be okay with me brushing her hair. She chose the morning before going to school, which is not what I would have chosen because I often feel time constraints then. But I went with it.
I sat down, sprayed her hair with leave-in conditioner, and started slowly and gently working through her tangles, breathing and telling myself again and again that this would simply have to take as long as it takes. It may not get done before school. I let Io decide when she wanted a break and when to get back to it. I breathed deeper every time I got frustrated or felt guilty for causing her pain or irritation that it wasn’t over yet.
And a magical thing happened. It changed from some awful discomfort I was inflicting upon her into a mutual experience of care. We laughed and chatted and when I was done Io said “I’m proud of you, Mom.” Because she understood.
Now I won’t say I haven’t slipped back into the old pattern many times, because I have, but I try to do it the meditation way as often as I can. And to bring that same energy into as much of my parenting and my life as possible. There is such calm at the center of knowing we have no real control over the experiences we have in life, how long they last, how painful they can be or how joyous. So when we can just allow them to flow through us without resistance, this is I think when we are living the life we are meant to have.
Love to you all. Please comment, like and share, ask question and join the patreon!