About Danielle
I first came across the Ayurvedic philosophies that form the foundation of Indian cuisine while working my way through cookbooks. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and what I find more important than the nutritional and caloric content of the food that I make is the source: the environment, culture, politics, economics, and the influence they have on our relationship with our bodies and with the world around us.
When I think about the disconnect between production and consumption, I wonder, do we truly know ourselves?
How far from source have we come?
Food is incredibly important, but it is just one of the ways that we nourish ourselves. I consider our relationship with the universal whole, and the ways that we are a reflection of the environments in which we are part. I want to dismantle learned behaviors that do not serve our being, bad habits inherited through unnatural systems that thrive on our dependence.
Ayurveda informs my counseling practice, but my background is actually in cultural studies. Inspired by a love of Japanese films, I focused on Japan as a student of East Asian Studies and spent some time researching culture and society abroad. But I didn't come to understand Japanese culture by reading anthropological texts; I found that the true heart of Japan could be found in the food. So it made sense that when I fell in love with the films of India that I found myself on a similar path.
Ayurveda is the lens through which I understand this relationship between micro and macro, the individual and universal being.
I believe that true nourishment is a spiritual experience:
To nourish, we must feed the body, the mind, and the spirit.
