"As someone who has led many residential retreats and workshops over the past 10 years, Selina is the chef and artist I most look forward to working with every time. Working with her feels like a true collaboration, a rare experience to be savored like the tastes of the food itself.
To begin: her food is delicious! As soon as we schedule a retreat together I can feel my body begin looking forward to the food she will bring to us with love, zest, and skill. I can also feel, from remembering prior experiences, how deeply nourished I will feel, how satisfied and delighted, how supported in my work.
She includes just the right variety of tastes, colors and textures together — making each individual meal special and looked-forward to. And her cooking allows the qualities of each food and spice to be experienced, creating an experience by turns subtle, rich, complex but not overly-so, just right. She also brings spontaneity and surprise, creative flair that totally delights and brings the experience to another level - I love that we get to experience both a sense of comforting and nourishment as well as a sense of delight and wow!
Selina also attunes to the field of the retreat experience, placing the kitchen in thoughtful dialogue with our process, bringing just the right ingredients together and often creating arcs of dishes that follow the energetic arc of our time together, sometimes even literally (such as broths that carry through and mature and evolve from soup to soup across the retreat). She does this naturally and unobtrusively, so that I do not have to think about it but rather also get to receive the care and the support from the food.
She also assists participants in truly experiencing the food: describing the ingredients, their origins in the land and with farmers and gatherers, how they’ve been prepared, how they can be savored at the table, and holding a moment of mindfulness and direct experience of the life force in the food. Again this is all done with a light touch, a brief and loving invitation.
As well, she meets people in their allergies and other food needs caringly and creatively, ensuring they also experience the pleasures and delights of the rest of the group.
Perhaps most tellingly, participants in our events universally share how much they enjoy her food and her presence, and recognize the significance of her role in our time together. And my gosh so do I. What a gift!"
Jason Holley
"If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything." - Thich Nhat Hanh
"The first yoga is food" Sri Krishnamacharya
"our chef Selina Gullery is something of a living embodiment of Demeter's abundance and nourishment/initiation through food." - Jason Holley, astrologer.
Selina’s passion for the sensual world has led her to chef at yoga retreats, believing that being in the kitchen (or in fact anywhere) is an extension of her yoga practice. The yoga philosophy of dropping into the awareness and presence of the heart is a vital ingredient in any meal. Dancing with the Prana of food, the elements, a pure intention and a clear mind forms the alchemy which transforms food into digestible and nourishing meals. She leads cooking classes and trainings, mainly in Europe and has cooked at trainings and retreats or in her home for the following yoga teachers, amongst others:
Ellen Watson ॐ Daphne Tse ॐ Shiva Rea ॐ Micheline Berry ॐ Twee Merrigan ॐ Simon Park ॐ Ronan Tang ॐ Sianna Sherman ॐ Jack Harrison ॐ Gwyn Williams ॐ Michael Shabort ॐ Biff Mitthoefer ॐ Cécile Roubaud
She is currently writing her first book on the art of intuitive cooking based on the principles of yoga philosophy (“Tantra in the Kitchen”).
Making the world a more loving and peaceful place starts with the first step inside of us - we can make a difference by caring for what is immediately in our surroundings.
Ellen Watson ॐ Daphne Tse ॐ Shiva Rea ॐ Micheline Berry ॐ Twee Merrigan ॐ Simon Park ॐ Ronan Tang ॐ Sianna Sherman ॐ Jack Harrison ॐ Gwyn Williams ॐ Michael Shabort ॐ Biff Mitthoefer ॐ Cécile Roubaud
She is currently writing her first book on the art of intuitive cooking based on the principles of yoga philosophy (“Tantra in the Kitchen”).
Making the world a more loving and peaceful place starts with the first step inside of us - we can make a difference by caring for what is immediately in our surroundings.
🎶Rossini on Food...
“I know of no more admirable occupation than eating, that is really eating. Appetite is for the stomach what love is for the heart. The stomach is the conductor, who rules the grand orchestra of our passions, and rouses it to action. The bassoon or the piccolo, grumbling its discontent or shrilling its longing, personify the empty stomach for me. The stomach, replete, on the other hand, is the triangle of enjoyment or the kettledrum of joy. As for love, I regard her as the prima donna par excellence, the goddess who sings cavatinas to the brain, intoxicates the ear, and delights the heart. Eating, loving, singing and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like the bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool.”
A musician friend of mine recently compared composing to cooking. And, although I might have used the term of composition when creating dishes, the comparison as such had never really occurred to me. Yet it is said, as I now learned, that most great composers - and those less great - enjoy and excel at the art of cooking. 🎶
“I know of no more admirable occupation than eating, that is really eating. Appetite is for the stomach what love is for the heart. The stomach is the conductor, who rules the grand orchestra of our passions, and rouses it to action. The bassoon or the piccolo, grumbling its discontent or shrilling its longing, personify the empty stomach for me. The stomach, replete, on the other hand, is the triangle of enjoyment or the kettledrum of joy. As for love, I regard her as the prima donna par excellence, the goddess who sings cavatinas to the brain, intoxicates the ear, and delights the heart. Eating, loving, singing and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like the bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool.”
A musician friend of mine recently compared composing to cooking. And, although I might have used the term of composition when creating dishes, the comparison as such had never really occurred to me. Yet it is said, as I now learned, that most great composers - and those less great - enjoy and excel at the art of cooking. 🎶
Testimonials:
Cooking for Shiva Rea's immersion in Chamonix 2018...
"The best vegetarian food I have ever eaten! Made with so much love and attention, every bite was like a kiss. Thank you!"
"Jeden Tag wieder ein neues Gedicht! Es hat die Seele genährt - merci, merci, merci!"
"thank you so much! Such poetic, colourful, tasty and highly digestible food!"
Cooking for Shiva Rea's immersion in Chamonix 2018...
"The best vegetarian food I have ever eaten! Made with so much love and attention, every bite was like a kiss. Thank you!"
"Jeden Tag wieder ein neues Gedicht! Es hat die Seele genährt - merci, merci, merci!"
"thank you so much! Such poetic, colourful, tasty and highly digestible food!"
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Enjoy learning the art of intuitive cooking at yoga retreats and in cooking workshops.
Contact Selina to organise a workshop near you! |
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Some of my cooking videos have been published on UDAYA.COM - have a look at the preview below - please excuse any spelling mistakes, we have corrected them in the meantime..!!
Much of what I have learnt about the art of cooking with full awareness and intuitively, is from Swami Samarpan - we've spent many hours in the kitchen together! - Thank you!