Ep. 126 Chef Amber on Holistic Living to Nourish Our Mind, Body and Soul
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Happy #SeekTheJoy Tuesday!
On the podcast today is Chef Amber, an entrepreneur, spiritually-led chef, author, and owner of two restaurants known as The Source Café in Hermosa and Manhattan Beach, California.
Amber is committed to making a paradigm shift in the world through food. Amber has been in the restaurant business since the age of 14. From working in front and back of house, she worked her way up the ranks and graduated from Auburn University with a Bachelors in Hotel & Restaurant management. She did her culinary training under a Southern Italian chef in Fort Collins. She was asked later to move to Hermosa Beach and open Mediterraneo as the Executive chef and continued to run the restaurant for a decade.
In this week’s episode Chef Amber and I chat about:
How Amber’s rock bottom led to her spiritual awakening, her mission and passion to facilitate a paradigm shift through food, and opening The Source Café
Amber’s tips and tools for nourishing our mind, body and soul, how slowing down leads to greater self-care, and why the magic is in allowing yourself to sit in the discomfort
What opening the second location of The Source Café in the middle of the pandemic taught Amber about staying in faith and trust as opposed to fear, the power of being the observer of our emotions
Plus, Amber shares the role of nourishment and connection in food, the joy she gets from her work, her biggest dream, and so much more!
I’m so excited to share this week’s new episode with Chef Amber, and I can’t wait to hear what you think! Make sure to join the conversation on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!
“My mantra and my intention for this year is I want to love the way I feed myself. I want to eat with joy, that’s like my favorite thing. I want to eat with joy and I want to love the way I feed myself.”
“My passion is to make a paradigm shift in the world through food and really show people that what we put in our bodies matters right now.”
Chef Amber brings unique qualities to her cooking and her career path. She believes that food nourishes us from the inside out, and combines her drive to use food to heal the mind and body with her classical culinary training. Her distinct cooking stems from the quality and, most importantly, intention she puts into her food. As someone who knows firsthand the struggles of not being able to eat everything you want due to health restrictions and allergies, Amber doesn’t want people to feel deprived because of their restrictions. Her belief in the rejuvenating and restorative powers of fresh, whole, nutritious food has made her unique artisanal foods restaurants must-stop spaces in her two restaurants located in Hermosa and Manhattan Beach. Each dish she creates is a sexy and healthy take on natural, wholesome foods. Amber loves to find the simple yet delicious and nutritious alternatives to old favorites that anyone, especially those with dietary restrictions and health challenges, can enjoy. Along with her flavorful dishes, she is passionate about sharing her diverse knowledge on the various ways to nourish your mind, body and soul, with her community.
“I knew that it was time to have some sort of healthy café or storefront where I could use my creativity as a chef and fuse it into this new beautiful way of living. I knew there was a passion and drive out there, not only for me to heal myself with food, but I knew other people were eager for that.”
She opened The Source Café in 2012 when she went through a massive health crisis and wake-up call. At this time, she was overweight, inflamed, in pain, addicted to caffeine and sugar, abusing food and depressed. She knew it was time to take charge of her health and was determined to heal herself and her relationship with food. She took her classical Italian chef training and fused it with her passion to create nourishing food to heal the mind and body.
She spent time at a detoxifying spiritual retreat center where she gained a life changing perspective and went through her own spiritual awakening. She started working with a breathwork coach, a tantra coach, and an intuitive therapist and surrounds herself with teachers that inspire continued spiritual growth, as well as coaches to help push herself outside of her limitations. She now incorporates daily meditation, chanting, praying, journaling, visualizations, vision boards, affirmations, and sensual dance along with Human Design, western astrology, and Chinese astrology into her everyday life.
Amber is passionate about sharing her own challenging journey with food. She’s had a dynamic emotional relationship with food since she was 8 years old, which led to her binging, restricting, purging, chronic dieting, and an addiction to diet pills and exercise. She used food to avoid all feelings and to cope with anxiety, stress, trauma, depression, and fear in her body, which she openly shares along with the honest and continuous process of her healing and learning to use food to nourish her body.
Her forthcoming May 2021 book release, HUNGRY - Why I f*ucking eat, how I became honest with food, my body and myself. shares her authentic journey of how she became honest with food, her body, and herself, and her forthcoming cookbook Sexy Nourishing Food comprises a combination of The Source Café classic favorite dishes along with her staple go-to dishes she enjoys making at home and will be releasing summer 2021.
“I want to make the biggest impact by inspiring people to love the way they feed themselves, and with that really my dream is to have a healthy cooking show, a national cooking show, to be able to reach as many people and really help people not only love food, but have a healthy relationship with food.”
To connect with Chef Amber visit her website https://chefamber.com/ and on Instagram @chefamberla
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