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By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On Saturday afternoon, Powisett Farm held a cooking class that was designed to do more than fill your stomach - it was designed to bring your life balance.
Kristina Bedoya, a plant-based chef and lifestyle counselor, taught the students in attendance all about Ayurvedic cooking, an ancient Indian way of eating she taught students was designed to make sure you’re “eating with the seasons, in harmony with nature.”
Bedoya explained that there are three dosha types based on the elements that exist in all of us: pitta, the fire element, kapha, the earth element, and vata, the air element. While they exist in all of us, some people have more of one than the other, and certain ways of eating can throw off your balance of each one.
Because it is the winter season, when your digestive fire is the strongest, Bedoya explains that you should be eating more root vegetables and healthy fats.
Thus, the menu for the day was a three-course meal of curried sweet potato and carrot soup, pumpkin mac and cheese, and an avocado-based chocolate pudding. Bedoya looked to avoid using lots of oil, noting that in the winter, “using lots of oils can cause a kapha buildup, and build up mucus inside you.”
Susan Hunt, who brought a special knife from home, pours her recently chopped carrots into the soup.
But, the informative nature of the class didn’t come at the expense of its fun.
At one point, Sean Dunn, the lone male in the class who was tasked with stirring the mac and cheese’s sauce, held up a dripping spatula and declared: “If you people weren’t here, I’d be like ‘What does this taste like?’” and mimed dramatically licking it off.
Later, when taking a picture of two women and their recently made creation, Bedoya would tell them to say, “vegan cheese” rather than the traditional “cheese.”
When it was time to eat, Bedoya made sure that the students were mindful as well; Ayurvedic cooking teaches that the digestive process, which begins with the smell of the food, can be affected by things like who you’re eating with and what kind of music is playing in the background.
Lydia Dunn said that it was “fun, and I got to meet new people.”
Sean, meanwhile, noted that “it was cool to be practicing a 1,000-year-old tradition.”
The steam from the boiling water does little to effect Bedoya’s cooking.
Above all else, it was the food that they enjoyed. Sean Dunn declared that the macaroni and cheese “has a hearty flavor, but a light feeling. It’s very unique. The ingredients blend together nicely.”
Lydia, meanwhile, praised the soup.
There was no way to know how their doshas were changed - but they ate it all.
