SPICE UP YOUR LIFE!   How many of your beloved Christmas memories centre around the scents that emerge from the kitchen?  The warming spices that are lovingly woven into so many of our holiday dishes pepper our meals with deliciousness - and trigger comforting memories. Ever wonder how? Ever consider how you can harness the sense of smell to bring a sense of calm and connection to your life all year round? In this Mindful Kitchen workshop, we will explore how the ritual of making and sharing the foods of the holiday season can help to fill us with connection to best selves, to others, to place and to the natural world. And the top tips can easily be replicated all year long!  

ABOUT THE MINDFUL KITCHEN  The Mindful Kitchen shows you how to eat food like you do yoga. At The Mindful Kitchen, mindfulness and cookery are blended together for folks who find it easier to eat a piece of pie than meditate, but are keen to get the same peace of mind results! Some of you may have tasted a Mindful Kitchen workshop at our former restaurant on Vesterbrogade (MadMad). The Mindful Kitchen helps you to develop what´s called a nature relatedness practice, bringing you closer to nature with every bite.  The benefits? With each grocery shop, meal cooked or consumed you will enhance your sense of calm, connectedness, creativity and along the way build eco friendly  habits that help you live a life that is a bit better for you and the environment you love.  Find out more at www.themindfulkitchen.org.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT SPICE UP YOUR LIFE

THE STORY OF SPICES:  Ever wonder where spices come from, how they are produced and why we choose certain spices to pepper our favourite holiday foods?  To begin the evening, we will sit you back for story time with a warming cup of hot mulled cider as we tell you a tale of far away islands, forests heavy with cinnamon spice and exotic dishes that created the very idea of aphrodisiacs. 

EXPLORING NATURE RELATEDNESS THROUGH FULL SENSORY CHRISTMAS COOKIE TASTING: Using our favourite Christmas cookies (laden with spices) we will teach you how to use sight, smell and taste to connect to what you see on your plate, and what you can´t see.  Expect a blend of practical foodie mindfulness and scientific explanation.Eating can be a wonderful way for big city dwellers to connect to the peace of the natural world, without leaving home. 

MAKING MEANING IN THE KITCHEN: Once we have set our intent for connecting to the world beyond our plates, we will head into the kitchen to put our plans into action.  Together we will be whipping up a British Christmas Pudding. Each participant will be producing a Christmas Pudding to take home and share during the holiday season. As we cook, we will learn how spices were used as a preservation tool both practically and emotionally in the Middle Ages, how those traditions are still the cornerstone of our Christmas food culture today and how breathing new life into the ritual can bring calm to even the most hectic of holiday seasons! 

2 hours of cooking class, mindfulness workshop, mulled cider, cookies and a making a Christmas pudding that serves 6 to take home (the pudding can be stored for up to a month).