Beloved Kitchen

Char (she/we/love/sister/mama) has been a commitment to nourishment ever since we learned, in the lineage of Generative Somatics, to make commitments. We see the table as the gathering point for the beloved community we believe in and serve. We have been gathering folks with the smell of garlic, cumin, and fresh bread for 20 years, and in 2024 the fire in our belly to help us all eat well with each(others) is as strong as ever. 

Char is also a commitment to ending cycles of trauma/violence/harm, and holds a therapeutic Somatics and conflict mediation practice at Coming Home Practice, which is currently on sabbatical. We hold the kitchen table as an important space for transforming beloved conflict, and see our commitments to nourishment and to ending cycles of harm as deeply intertwined. 

After years of catering farm-to-table meals around the world, working as vegetarian chef at Ghee Miami, resident chef at The Watershed Center, and hosting Abolition & Waffles for Sweet Freedom Farm, Char co-created Beloved Kitchen with beloved sister-friend, Zien to support deepened relationships with food, land, and eachother in this valley. 

Zien-Celeste (they/we/Sister/Beloved) credits their connection with food and spiritual nourishment to they’re upbringing in Louisiana. With generations of family who farmed in the South and the later socio-political erasure of black hands from self-sustained food sources, Zien-Celeste’s personal investigation of the connection between health and food began at 15 years old. 

In 2017, Zien-Celeste began sharing their love of cooking and gathering together around tables, with fellow students at Bard College as a cooking instructor. Since 2017, Zien-Celeste has moved through various food landscapes, ranging from corporate food sustainability with Chartwells Inc. art NYU, to a grassroots pandemic food preservation collective in the Hudson Valley, to abolitionist farming with Sweet Freedom Farm and their own personal artistic cake offering, Altar Cakes. Through all of these experiences, Zien-Celeste celebrates multiple areas of the world that have come into their life through friends, family and travel and introduced to them to various cooking cultures.

Zien-Celeste believes that everyone has a seat at the table and at the table is where we are welcomed to take part in the collective collaboration of our liberators gifts and practices while meeting out most fundamental needs - to be nourished. Eating together, in a world that attempts to force separation, is a liberator art. That is why they are thrilled to begin full-time commitment to Beloved Kitchen and their beloved-sister-chef Char this 2024.