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We welcome you to read through this page for a whole-picture perspective on the Women’s Nourishing Food Retreat. If you’re looking for specific information, you can use the following links to skip around:
Why Nourishment for Women?
A woman’s body is an ecosystem unto itself, and nourishing it is an art. As women, our internal ecologies change with the seasons and cycles of our lives. Learning how to feed ourselves for optimal health, vitality, and grace is one of the most powerful and effective ways we can dance with these cycles.
In our Women’s Nourishing Food Retreat, you’ll come to know the inner workings of women’s physiology more intimately and learn how to set the perfect table for feeling your best. No mere healthy food cooking class, we’ll explore myriad elements of deep nourishment: beauty, pleasure, togetherness, and, of course, delicious food, bringing health and pleasure together.
What To Expect: Healthy Cooking Classes for Women
This retreat is for women who know the kitchen is the heart of the home and want to build their confidence creating delicious meals for themselves and their families. We will delve into frameworks of nourishment that support vitality for women of all ages and then spice it up with a dash of flavor development, technique, and of course—tasting.
- Learn to craft nourishing traditional foods
- Receive instruction from expert chefs & culinary kitchen tenders
- Practice flavor & sensory development for delectable meals
- Experience a supportive, inclusive environment
- Learn women’s physiology & the importance of nutrition
- Be nourished by cooking classes, tasting menus, and a feast
- Learn in beautiful, sheltered, outdoor kitchens
- You’ll have full use of our facilities and optional free camping
Ready to Join?
Skills & Subjects We’ll Explore
Learn how to make delicious food that feeds the vital essence of the body and tastes finger-licking good. Our time together will be split between learning the foundations of nourishment, practicing the art of cooking, and savoring meals together while we sit in council. We will cover traditional food recipes, delve into the physiology of women’s nutrition for all ages, and explore local, wild, and seasonal menus.
Some of the skills and subjects you can expect to explore, include:
Traditional Food Techniques:
How to make delicious food from scratch without tremendous effort.
Fermentation:
Learn to make probiotic-rich ferments and explore creative ways to include them in your daily meals.
Council of Nourishment:
Be held in your personal experiences and inquiries through intimate sharing circles.
Garden Tour & Farm Harvest:
Get your hands dirty in the right kind of way with a farm tour + harvest for the food we’ll make together.
Flavor Development:
Learn to taste for flavor & deepen into the wisdom of your sensing body.
Nourishing the Vital Essence:
Explore foods and perspectives that support the wellbeing of all women’s bodies.
Herbal & Wild Foods Kitchen:
Bring mineral-rich, wild, and seasonal herbs into your kitchen.
Nourishing Food Retreat Schedule
Four days of hands-on cooking classes for adults, designed with women’s nourishment at the center.
- Thursday – Saturday: 9:30am – 5:00pm
- Sunday: 10:00am – 4:30pm
Day 1: Opening Circle, Crave-Worthy Condiments, and Nutrition for Women
Our retreat will begin with a warm welcome, opening circle, and orientation to the Wild Abundance Campus. After we greet each other and get settled, we’ll explore some of the condiments that form the kitchen’s foundation: culinary butters, infused vinegars, and herbal honeys. After lunch, we’ll dive into the nuances of nutrition across a woman’s lifespan.
Day 2: Morning Circle, The Animal Body & Organ Meats, Garden Tour
We’ll start our day in circle together with a grounding ritual and time to ask questions. Throughout the morning and early afternoon, we’ll discuss the animal body and how to integrate organ meats (essential to human nutrition for women through most traditional diets) into the diet in delicious ways. Plus, we’ll cook! Possible culinary projects include how to properly prepare meat, liver pâté, and/or bone broth and stock. Later in the afternoon, we’ll tour the Wild Abundance gardens and gather veggies, fruits, and herbs.
Day 3: Morning Circle, Ferments & Sourdough, Cooking Class, & Evening Feast
We’ll continue our morning circle tradition and create space for Q&As. Afterwards, we’ll dive into nourishing ferments—condiments, sourdough, kvass, etc…We’ll also cover pantry items and tools that will help you ferment with success. We’ll round out the day with a group class and celebratory feast!
Day 4: Morning Circle, Wild Foods & Edible Flowers, Women’s Council & Closing Circle
Today will be our final morning circle and grounding ritual, followed by a class on easy-to-access wild foods and edible flowers, plus a tasting menu! Later, we’ll sit in council together for conversations on beauty and slowness as essential ingredients in women’s nourishment, and end with a closing circle.
*note, the schedule is subject to changes based on weather and the unpredictability that adds spice to life
Ready to Join?
Instructors
April Rainsong
Chloe Lieberman
Kearsley Tate Schweller
The Women’s Nourishing Food Retreat is held at the Wild Abundance Sanford Way Campus
Wild Abundance’s original home campus is on Sanford Way in Barnardsville, NC. It boasts many gorgeous and functional features, like a leaf-shaped organic permaculture garden, a food forest, a hand built log cabin, an open-air classroom topped with solar panels, and a stunning wattle and daub outdoor kitchen.
Please note: our campuses are all unconventional, with rustic amenities and uneven ground. Read more about Planning your trip and about our campuses. It takes about 25 minutes to get here from Asheville.
You’ve got several options of where to stay during your class. Some students camp, some locals commute, and others choose to rent accommodations with more creature comforts.
Onsite camping (with your own warm bedding and rainproof tent or hammock) is available for free to all students (including locals) during class. Some set-up-for-you tents are available with cots and cozy bedding for a flat fee.
Campers and all students have access to a lovely outdoor kitchen equipped with a stove and hot and cold water, plus pots and pans, knives and cutting boards, bowls, plates, and utensils, along with an outdoor shower with hot and cold running water and outhouse. If you’d rather rent a hotel, house or cottage, there are many available. We’ll share a curated list of nearby options once you’ve registered.
So you can better plan your trip to come learn with us, here’s some info on accommodations we offer, or that we link to in the student handbook you’ll receive upon registration. Below it you’ll find info on transportation.
- Camping with your own gear: free
- Staying in a large tent with a cozy cot and bedding that we set up for you: $200 flat fee; you can stay there anytime from 5pm before the first day of your class, to 12pm the day after your class ends.
- Hyper-local off-campus single rentals: $40-$2000/night + fees
- Hyper-local off-campus couples rentals: $20-100/person/night + fees
- Hyper-local off-campus group rentals: $25-$86/person/night + fees
Getting a place or renting a car with a group of fellow students and carpooling are great ways to make connections and reduce costs! We share contact info for each class so you can get in touch and make plans together. Everyone has a chance to keep their info private if they choose.
Our campus is about 25 minutes north of Asheville, 40 minutes from the Asheville Regional Airport, and 2.5 hours from the Charlotte International Airport. You’ll get detailed directions of how to get here upon registration.
You won’t need a car during your class. There’s a chance you may want to run an errand or go out to dinner with fellow students, and if this happens, it’s highly likely that another student with a car will be happy to give you a lift.
We’ve also got a list of folks who will do airport and grocery shuttle runs for $50-$80 each way. We share this information in the student handbook when you register. If you’d rather rent a car, those run anywhere from $45-$200/day. Just like with lodging, teaming up with a group of fellow students to share a car rental can help build connections and reduce costs.