Loving people through respectful listening and through the preparation of nutritious food has shown benefits time and time again—learning to cook simple recipes from ‘scratch’ rather than depending on takeaways or foods that feed addictive and often unhealthy cravings, and ways of thinking is important work. I notice this when I teach and demonstrate food preparation. It’s in offering a caring and creative presence in the kitchen that I help to nurture feelings of self-acceptance, joy and connectedness for those I companion on this journey. 

This culinary experience is a relationship of reciprocity. I delight in, commit to and trust in the process and I encourage participants' abilities to do the same. The opportunity for good contact is enhanced through listening, mirroring, watching where the cookery experience becomes one of self-expression. As the participant gains confidence they begin to trust both my helping presence and the creative process. 

The kitchen acts as a container for individual and/or group participants. It is important that together we create and inhabit a safe space both physically and emotionally.

Participants set the pace. As the companion cook and caring presence I watch and observe the flow of energy in the individual. More specifically in the eyes, posture, skin tone, breath, physicality and gestures. You have my whole-hearted attention.

For many years I worked as a professional cook, cookery school teacher and food writer. I studied an advanced diploma in cookery with Anne Willan at La Varenne, Ecole de Cuisine, Paris, France before moving to London, England to work with Prue Leith’s Good Food in the 1980s. As a follow on to working for the indomitable Prue Leith I built my own catering business while integrating my love for writing. I wrote local producer profiles and was food editor for the Local Living Group of magazines in Lincolnshire, UK when I was sponsored to the Guild of Food Writers by British chef, Rick Stein. Cooking as a spiritual practice is a braiding together of my love of food with the skills gleaned from a degree in psychotherapy and those of spiritual companionship through the Pacific Jubilee program.