Kitchen Hearth Heart Heal
The Way of the Devotional Cook
A Self-Paced Online Course
The kitchen is the heart of the home and the place where with most action for your well-being can be taken.
The food we eat and the drinks we consume lay the foundation for the entirety of our body-experience.To be on a healing journey of any kind must include devotion to and within the kitchen. You cannot skip this truth if you want to experience full vitality and wellbeing within your beautiful body.
To practice devotion in the kitchen is to practice devotion to your body at the most foundational level.
The earthly root of your life:
The fire in your belly and womb- It’s all tended to and nourished here.
We cannot skip over the importance of devotional practice within the kitchen to focus on ‘higher-level’ actions of emotional/spiritual practice/ processing unless we want to experience depletion in our body.
Food foundation must be primary focus before other actions are taken or else we’re selling ourselves short.
This is a core-truth of living in a human-animal body.
Instead of only thinking ‘You are what you eat’, consider this as an added layer:
You are how you
make and consume
your food.
What sort of thoughts, feelings, sensations arise when you consider this sentence?
These are clues to your relationship with this base-level process of tending to your body.
—
Food has been one of the main issues for most of my clients in my work with
Cervical Wellness.
How to nourish for the pelvis?
How to make sure we’re eating enough and in a way that’s pro pelvic well-being?
How to prioritize cooking foods for ourselves?
How to plan and make our life in food easeful and not stressful?
Food is a MAJOR part of our lives, and for many of us, we never learned how to actually work in the kitchen in a way that’s simple, easeful, and most important of all, enjoyable.
I come from a very middle class family, with not a whole lot of extra spending money, which means that my family was dead-set on budgeting, meal planning, keeping a running freezer-list, and cooking every meal.
I grew up in a household that did a lot of cooking. My mother always had a garden, and my father is a hunter/fisherman. This led to endless different combinations of meats, vegetables and fruits streaming into our kitchen, needing to be processed and cooked.
I also grew up in the house as the only-child in the house, with parents who didn’t let me watch much television or be on the computer very much (this was the era of the dawn of the internet, when AOL chatrooms we’re all the rage). So, what I did, oftentimes, was sit at the kitchen counter and talk with my Mom and Dad as they cooked dinner, and watched what they were doing.
I was fascinated by the different tools, gadgets and steps they took to make the meals that we’d eat every day.
I’d observe the different ways in which my mom cut an onion depending on what dish.
Or how my father would always rinse off meat coming out of the plastic packaging because he didn’t want to eat the old blood on the outside.
I’d see how they cleaned the kitchen as they cooked so that there wasn’t a humongous mess at the end of the meal.
I observed how my parents pickled the green beans from the garden, and every summer my father and I would go to local blackberry patches to gather blackberries, and he’d make preserves that we ate all year round.
In the era before cooking shows became very popular with the Food Network, I had my very own cooking educational show right in my own home- and I didn’t even know it.
Looking back I now see that this time was a gift:
I come to recognize that most people don’t grow up in a household where the kitchen and food are central to their family culture.
I personally believe that this is one of the reasons for the quick development of so many preventative diseases that have popped up over the last 40 years- people are no longer taught the ways of the kitchen and food, and our relationship with food is now found through the Uber-Eats app or in the Chick-Fil-A drive through.
As an Integrative Health Coach and Wellness Educator, I’m committed to teaching and guiding people back into relationship with their bodies in new ways to cultivate real health and vitality.
It’s my deepest service to point you to the path to feeling good in our body, not from a “I feel so confident in my skin” type of feeling good, but actually feeling good in our body:
Our energy, our mental clarity, our libido, our vitality.
What I’ve come to deeply know and understand is that feeling good in our body all begins with the foundation of how we’re feeding our body.
What we’re consuming, how what we’re consuming is made, and how we feel about what we’re consuming, all play a role in the nourishing of our body.
This incorporates the Body/Mind/Spirit of not only our own human body, but of the bodies of that which we consume; the animals, the plants, the waters, the minerals. It’s all interconnected, and once I realized this, I recognized the true value of what I observed in my family during my childhood- that devotion in the kitchen with whole and vital ingredients set’s the stage for overall wellness in all facets of our lives.
Our food and the way we engage with it is the foundation of our lives, and it’s time we begin to treat it as such.
~Vital Hearth~
Our deep ancestral ties with the concept of hearth stretch back way back in our early beginnings as nomadic hunter-gatherers, when sitting around the fire was the central point of the community.
Food was cooked around the fire.
Stories were shared around the fire.
Community was built around the fire.
Safety was felt around the fire.
Fire is what revolutionized our human existence and forged the bonds of families and communities that helped them endure even the most desperate and destitute times.
As long as we had a fire, we felt safe, warm, nourished, and protected.
As we progressed in our evolution as a species and the development of cultures around the world, the fire and the hearth remained a central place within each home and community. Most often it was the women who tended to the hearth;
all together shelling peas, rendering lard, baking bread, and making nourishing
soups and stews for the hard-working men.
The hearth became the place of power for the women– it was their domain.
With their hands they formed the foods (the foundation) of the families
and children that all of us come from.
If it wasn’t for the women tending to the hearth for all those centuries (and millennia), we wouldn’t be here today.
It’s the devotion to the hearth that kept our lineages alive during war, famine, drought, disease, and every other hardship humanity’s endured over time.
What an incredible place of power.
Think about it for a second:
Have you ever noticed that at house-parties, people tend to flock to
and hover in and around the kitchen?
Or the deep sense of peace and wellbeing that comes over us when we walk
into a house and we can feel the warmth emanating from the kitchen and smell
the aroma of whatever is cooking?
Or how children and pets love to be in the kitchens with us, even though we ‘shoo’ them away continuously?
The kitchen is magnetic.
The hearth calls to us and pulls us in, to be warmed by the fire and nourished
by the magical creations pouring from this place in the house.
The kitchen and hearth are the heart of a home, and it’s from this location
that deep healing on multidimensional levels occurs.
It’s embedded deep into our DNA memory, and is a missing piece for many
of us in this modernized world.
Unfortunately, second and third wave feminism taught us and engrained into us that the
kitchen was a place of oppression for women.
That the daily tasks of tending to the hearth kept us from ‘living our potential’
and ‘achieving success’ in the ways that men have done.
Over the past sixty years we’ve seen a rise in women exchanging the aprons
and wooden spoons for executive business suits and high-powered careers,
leaving the hearth cold and empty.
While this progress has been revolutionary for many women,
giving women opportunities that all of our grandmother’s
didn’t even have a sliver of hope for, it’s important to consider at what cost
this ‘progress’ has fostered.
The heartbeat of many homes slowed down and hardened with convenience and fast foods, and even more so now with food delivery services where we don’t even need to make any sort of effort beyond tapping our phones a few times in an app.
Chronic illness, auto-immune disease, mental health conditions, and an overall haze of unwellness and disease has gripped Western society since women abandoned the hearth for money and (masculine) power.
Where at one time families could count on nourishing home-cooked meals created by hand by people we love to warm our bellies and souls, we now rely on foods cooked by people who really don’t want to be doing so (who really wants to work at a fast food or any other convenience food location? Truly?), packaged in plastic or styrofoam, and served to us semi-cold, limp, and in a way that has zero heart and soul to it.
What happened to the fires that built communities and kept people’s souls alive in times of hardship and desperation?
A return to the hearth (kitchen) and the remembrance of the path of devotional cooking our grandmothers of all of our lineages practiced, is what our dying culture needs.
We need foods to warm our bellies, awaken our hearts, and nourish our souls.
It’s time for women to remember their power in the kitchen,
and to relearn the ways that kept society alive and thriving for generations.
Welcome to
~Kitchen Hearth Heart Heal~
The kitchen is the heart of the home and the place where with most action for your well-being can be taken.
With modern conveniences such as electronic gadgets, gas or electric stoves,
and refrigerators/freezers, we are able to create more nutritious and
soul-healing (food) magic then any of our forbearers.
We can whip up meals and preserve food in less time than ever before, and once you have a few foundational habits and systems set in place, you’ll be able to flow through the kitchen effortlessly for yourself and your family.
This 5 module course includes 4 classes and 4 live demonstrations, (pre-recorded)
that you’ll be able follow along with or reference back to via the recordings.
Just as I learned through watching my parents, you’ll be able to observe how
I move and work within the kitchen.
This isn’t set up like a cooking show where everything is already prepped and perfectly placed for the taping.
I reveal my ways in the hearth in real time to provide a raw and realistic understanding of devotional cooking.
You’ll be able to see how the setup of my kitchen (what’s in what cupboard
and the placement of the appliances) helps me be in the flow of hearth-tending
and creative cooking.
~The Course~
Module 1: Kitchen Devotion Basics
-Intro to Devotional Cooking
– Completing the serotonin/dopamine feedback loop via cooking
– Shopping: Bulk, Meal Planning, $$ Management, Freezer Lists
– Tools & Gadgets for easeful devotional cooking: What I recommend and use on a daily/weekly/monthly basis
-Kitchen/Pantry/Cupboards Organization for easeful creativity
Cooking Demo:
Pan fried steak, roasted potatoes, mushroom cream sauce, w/ zucchini spears
Module 2: Devotional Cooking Energetics
-You are what you eat → You are how you make your food
– Structured water in food and how we impact it
-Mindset in eating, mindset in cooking
– Food as medicine = Making medicinal foods
-Elemental practice: Earth, fire & water
Cooking Demo:
Pan fried steak, roasted potatoes, mushroom cream sauce, w/ zucchini spears
Module 3: Kitchen & Hearth as a Sacred Place
-For the love of your dishes: energetics of the dishes/cups/utensils
-For the love of your tools: energetics of storage containers, bowls, pots, pans, and the remaining kitchen accoutrements
– Clean kitchen: Clear heart & mind
– Ritual in the mundane: Loving the humanness of hearth-tending
Cooking Demo:
Shepherd’s Pie
Module 4: How to Cook With Devotion
-Aprons as ritual
-The Beauty Way in Kitchen, Cooking & Consumption:
The counter, the hearth, the table, the sink
– Cycling ingredients for inspiration, creativity, and freshness
-Continuing traditions: Food, culture & ancestry
Cooking Demo:
Chopped asian chicken salad with homemade dressing
Hi Friends,
I’m Denell! Returning to the kitchen and hearth is where I found a true sense of empowerment. I’m in complete control of the foods that feed me and family- the building blocks of our bodies and the central point of our well-being.
What greater sense of empowerment is there? To dictate the trajectory of the foods of our lives which make up our body?
I’m honored to be the keeper of the hearth of my home and is something I return to time and time again, especially as the world feels like it’s getting crazier by the day.
I used to believe that tending to the kitchen (hearth) meant I was an oppressed woman, and that cooking and taking care of food in my household was an annoying chore. I loathed having to plan meals or think about shopping, and don’t even get me started about how I felt about dishes! They were the bane of my existence- truly. Yet as I softened into the genetic memory encoded in my body that the hearth is a sacred place that can be tended to with love and devotion, everything shifted.
My mental, physical and spiritual health improved. My marriage improved. My sense of accomplishment soared. Food inspiration came flooding back. I recognized the unique power I held in my hands when I reclaimed my food (and kitchen) as a place of unlimited potential that can only better the well-being of my life and the lives around me.
After keeping this aspect of my life tucked away from the eyes of others, I’m ready to share all I’ve learned over the last decade of returning to the kitchen as a place of power, and help you remember just how lucky we are to be tenders of the hearth.
~What’s Included~
-4 pre-recorded classes
-4 pre-recorded cooking demos & the recipes
-1 pre-recorded Closing call
-Freezer-list spreadsheet template
Additional BONUS Videos:
-Video tour of my kitchen, pantry and freezer
-Video on how to water-bath can (preserves, jellies, jams, pickles)
-Video on how to pressure-can (soups, stews, meats)
-Kitchen scrap broth: The basis of many easy meals
–-The power of garnishes
-More+
~Total Cost~
$178
I’m so excited for this offering friends.
I honestly think that convincing women via second/third-wave feminine that the kitchen is an oppressive place is one of the causes for the insane influx of pelvic (and overall) health issues.
We’ve outsourced our nourishment to big companies and restaurants, where we have zero control of the energetics behind the creation of foods, the quality of food themselves, and the biofeedback loop we engage in when we go through the whole process of food experience.
I get it if you don’t like to cook or it feels like a chore.
Yet, I think these feelings can be seen as more about our relationship to food, to working with food, and whether or not creativity-with-food was fostered in our upbringing.
One hundred years ago, Grandmother taught Granddaughters the ways of the hearth.
Now, we have Uber-eats and DoorDash filling in these teachings, and before that frozen dinners and boxed mashed potatoes.
Reclaiming the kitchen is reclaiming our heritage as a human on this earth, and as women who tend to the hearth.
It’s in our DNA.
It’s what our body knows and craves.
It’s about dang time that women remember how incredibly powerful it is to choose to enjoy themselves in the kitchen, and create the food medicine magic that will sustain their vitality for decades.
And even more so, we can pass on this knowledge and tradition to our offspring (or other youth in our lives) and instill the value of hearth and home back into our families.
What better way to bring healing to our sick and dying culture than igniting the fire of our hearts and bellies once more through the food from the hearth, and bring nourishment to the soul of the planet once more.
We can change the world with our aprons, pots, and wooden spoons friends. I know it.
Are you with me?