Five Body Wisdom
Five Body Wisdom is designed to emphasize the deep connection between our five bodies—physical, energy, mental, wisdom, and bliss—and how they work together to promote a life of balance and fulfillment. Inspired by and for women over 55, this podcast delves into the specific challenges and opportunities of this transitional life stage, offering inspiration, guidance, and practical wisdom.
Each episode weaves together personal stories, insightful interviews, and practical techniques to empower listeners to embrace their true selves. The show is hosted by Delia Quigley, an experienced yogi, meditator, intuitive artist, and author with over 40 years of experience in helping women find clarity and purpose in their daily lives. Her compassionate approach and deep understanding of life’s interconnected aspects position her as a trusted voice in navigating change with grace and authenticity.
Listeners of Five Body Wisdom will gain valuable tools to restore balance in their lives, enhance self-awareness, and reignite their sense of purpose. Delia shares her personal journey and expertise, offering techniques for nurturing the body, calming the mind, connecting with intuition, and embracing spiritual growth. The show also features interviews with everyday women who have discovered their inner strength and wisdom, inspiring listeners to do the same.
By tuning in, you’ll join a supportive community of women dedicated to living with intention and joy. Whether you seek practical advice, soulful stories, or a spark of inspiration, Five Body Wisdom provides a roadmap for thriving in the second half of life.
Five Body Wisdom
A Woman's Kitchen: Where the Magic Happens
Every kitchen tells a story. Behind each stovetop and cutting board stands a woman with wisdom earned through years of transforming raw ingredients into sustenance for body and soul.
This episode takes you on an intimate journey through women's relationships with their kitchens - spaces that become far more than meal preparation stations. They evolve into sanctuaries where creativity, heritage, healing, and love converge in the simple act of cooking.
The conversation deepens as we explore how cooking nourishes all five bodies - physical, mental, energetic, wisdom, and divine. The kitchen becomes a temple where daily necessity transforms into spiritual practice. As one guest beautifully states, "When you cook mindfully, you're not just preparing a meal - you're feeding the whole self and those you love."
Whether you're an enthusiastic home cook or someone who rarely ventures beyond the microwave, these stories will transform how you view the kitchen. They invite you to discover the power of presence in food preparation and the profound connection between what we cook and who we become. Listen, be inspired, and perhaps find your own culinary sanctuary.
When I'm in the kitchen, when I'm elbow deep in preparing a meal, I am very much in my happy place.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Episode 9, a Woman's Kitchen, where I take you from my humble beginnings as a master chef and cookbook author to a trillion dollar. Delia White, is that true? Were you a master chef? Actually, I'm a very good cook and once I was a master chef and now I'm a really good cook, and all the women in the show are master cooks as well. We've learned our chops standing for hours in all styles of kitchens over boiling water and hot oil to create healthy, great-tasting food. So stay with me.
Speaker 2:I'm Delia Quigley and you're listening to 5-Body Wisdom Interviews with Ourselves. One thing I know about you, delia, is you love being in your kitchen. You know I do, and when I was putting together the show for a woman's kitchen, I knew which woman to ask. I mean, I threw it out to a couple of the gals, but I knew their reaction and I was right no, no, delia, this one I cannot contribute to. On the other hand, I reached out to some gals who love being in the kitchen and they were full on For so many women.
Speaker 2:You see, the kitchen is more than countertops and cookware. It's where nourishment begins, where stories are passed down through generations and where love takes the shape of warm soup, rising bread or a favorite recipe shared with friends. My guests today are women for whom the kitchen is sacred ground. Here they nurture their families, welcome guests and express their inner wisdom through the rituals of chopping, stirring, seasoning and serving. These women are not just cooks. These women are medicine makers, memory keepers and everyday alchemists. So pour yourself a cup of tea, settle in and join me for a heartfelt conversation about food, family and the feminine spirit alive in every kitchen.
Speaker 3:My kitchen is one of my sanctuaries and my garden is the other one. Some of my earliest pleasant memories are in the kitchen. We lived upstairs from my grandparents until I was about in fourth grade and then we moved just down the street.
Speaker 3:I spent a lot, a lot of time with my grandmother in her kitchen, my Hungarian grandmother. She was very old school, old country. Everything had to be made from scratch, everything had to be fresh. Ingredients were super important for her homegrown whenever that was possible. She rarely measured anything and it was all done by feel and intuition. I was always welcome in her kitchen and was a very active participant. I had my own little apron and a cigar box full of kitchen tools, which, by the way, I still have which, by the way, I still have. Food was always, always an important and special part in my family. We ate dinner together every night my mom, my dad, my brother and I and then on Sundays we went to one of the grandparents homes to dine together as a family. All of those early kitchen experiences had a huge impact on me.
Speaker 3:I lived in a very urban ethnic neighborhood. You could walk down the street and smell Italian food and Polish food, hungarian food, german food, and people invited you over for special meals or even have to be special and you know, just socializing together, a lot of socializing, and it all involved food. Everyone in the neighborhood well mostly everybody had a garden, so you knew the source of the food. It was very apparent there were fresh tomatoes. My Italian grandmother's one of her favorite dishes was dandelion salad with hard-boiled eggs. We would gather burdock and cook it up with eggs. The people next door grew gagutz, which is a big Italian squash. The man around the corner had a giant fig tree and would pick fresh figs off the tree for me. A lot of people in the neighborhood in the neighborhoods had grapes that they made into wine. Mr Vierag, who lived across the street, would go out on wild mushroom forays. If he ate them and lived through the night, then we got to enjoy them ourselves. My dad was a big fisherman so there was always fresh fish around. Meat came from local farms. There was actually a butcher shop in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3:When I was 17, I decided to stop eating meat after listening to a radio broadcast about animal farming. My parents were pretty concerned about that, but it was what motivated me to really delve into the food world. I read lots of books and experimented a lot. To really delve into the food world, I read lots of books and experimented a lot. The organic back to the earth movement was gaining momentum, and that fit my mindset and actually still does so. While all of this stuff was going on in the garden and in my kitchen, I was teaching school. I did that for many years, but eating well was always a big priority for us. I cooked at Genesis Farm when their earth literacy programs were in full swing. I contributed to a cookbook there. I ran cooking classes and I've done a variety of food demonstrations. We've been members of the CSG since its inception and have always had our own garden CSG since its inception and have always had our own garden. And you can't have a garden and put so much effort into it and then not do anything with those veggies.
Speaker 3:That brings me back to my kitchen again. I love transforming my produce into something delicious and nourishing and I like doing it in my kitchen, where I know where everything is and is organized to my liking. I admit that I can be a bit territorial in my kitchen, but my awareness contributes to me working on it. Over the years I've experimented with different diets and many types of cuisines. Current favorites that I've been making a lot are Indian and Thai cuisines.
Speaker 3:My favorite thing to cook are soups, because they're so versatile and very forgiving. Baking is probably my least favorite kitchen activity because I feel like it's somewhat restrictive, because I have to be really careful and pay attention and measure out all of the ingredients. Plus, there always seems to be like so many dishes to wash afterwards. So to me, to kind of sum up everything cooking is a very sensual experience. It involves smelling, touching your sight, tasting things, hearing All of those senses are involved. And then when you cook for other people, it becomes a social experience that brings another level of connection. So to me, food and my kitchen equal many things.
Speaker 2:They are love, comfort, warmth, happy times, transformation, memories good ones most of the time medicine, satisfaction, creativity, nourishment, and it all happens in my beautiful kitchen that was linda wells hands down one of the best chefs that you will have the great pleasure of sitting down in her kitchen first, because her kitchen is amazing. As you sip a cup of tea, she'll put out those little tapas, little appetizers that you'll munch on. A little something she made, a little something she picked up here and there in her wanderings to many of the wonderful New Jersey delis around the state. I have made the mistake of trying to get into that kitchen and cook she and her husband a meal. But, as she said, she is a little possessive of that space and that's fine. I'm all for letting someone else do the cooking if I get to eat the bounty.
Speaker 2:So, Delia, is there such a thing as an ideal kitchen? Well, it depends on the individual or on the cook. I've been in $100,000 remodeled kitchens big wolf stove, marble counters, beautiful cabinets, all the tools you could possibly need. You know everything, perfect, pristine, and yet it was only used to microwave pizza or heat up takeout. That expensive kitchen was built to sell a house, not really for cooking. On the other hand, my friend Cheryl had this tiny kitchen and I remember going for dinner at her house one night where she created a mole sauce that stopped all conversation at the dinner table. All you heard were the moans and groans of gustatory ecstasy from all of her guests. And if any of you ever watched the old film Babette's Feast, then you know what I'm talking about. It's not the size of the kitchen, but the imagination and the skills of the chef.
Speaker 1:When I'm in the kitchen, when I'm elbow deep in preparing a meal, I am very much in my happy place. I know it sounds cliche, but the kitchen is where I can get into the flow of things. Have you ever felt that you know the feeling when you push the toaster knob down just at the right time for the scrambled eggs to cook and twist open a perfectly ripe avocado, and the coffee maker makes its final gurgles of the morning brew? You know it's effortless, it's easy, Everything's just in sync and in time. I try to be aware of those moments when I'm being mindful without even knowing I'm being mindful. You know, when I'm being mindful without even knowing I'm being mindful, you know I'm calm, I'm happy, content, because, hey, there have been those times when the opposite happens. I'm not in sync. I burn the toast, the veggies I'm cutting keep rolling onto the floor, I nick myself with a knife geez, definitely not in the flow. And that usually happens when I'm in some preoccupied state of frustration or worry or something. I've learned to take a step back and get myself centered. When that happens, Shift your mental state, Paul.
Speaker 1:I learned that lesson years ago when I was making dinner for my family. My two boys were really young. At the time. I was hands-on with the food and angry. I can't remember what I was angry about.
Speaker 1:It was a time when I bottled up my emotions and just stewed on them apparently right. But I was pissed and I caught myself in this state as my hands were literally in the bowl of ingredients mixing away. I stepped back and I thought I cannot put this negative energy into the food that my boys will eat. So I went outside, I took some breaths, I took in the trees and plants and managed to shift my mood to a more neutral place at least, so I could nourish my family instead of poison them.
Speaker 1:I know that sounds a little dramatic, but I truly believe that, since we're all just energy, we need to be aware of what we're broadcasting into our food, into our bodies and into others. And really, what's true for me is most of the time when I head to the kitchen, tie on my apron and pick up my knife, I get in that happy place and into that state of flow. As I snap those pole beans while the water comes to a boil of flow, as I snap those pole beans while the water comes to a boil, I know I'm putting that positive, calm energy into my meal that will ultimately nourish myself. I just love that.
Speaker 2:So, Delia, don't you have some stories to tell about Polly and how you know her from so long ago? Yeah, you're right, I should definitely tell the story. Back in the mid-80s, I was managing this kitchen for a large health food store down in Sarasota called the Granary, and one day in walks this beautiful, young, wild haired woman who said that she could boil water and wanted the job to assist me in the kitchen. Her name was Polly Pitchford. You just heard from her and I hired her right away. She's probably one of the funniest women that you'll ever meet. She has since gone on to become a motivational speaker for health and wellness, teaching people how to stay fit, how to become and stay healthy.
Speaker 2:We started cooking together and it became a loud, boisterous, laugh-filled kitchen. We even had an early morning little cable TV show called the Granary Gourmet, which gained a following with the local gay community because we tended to get a little outrageous in the dishes that we would create and show on our cooking show. We eventually started a business preparing and delivering home-cooked food. We had studied macrobiotics together in Miami and learned to really cook with the energetics of food. The science of food we studied with Michio Kushi and Avalon Kushi, Bill Tara and all the other great teachers who are changing the entire dynamic of healing with whole foods. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all those people just doing what they could for those who are suffering. The kitchens we learned in were filled with good people imbuing the food with love and positive energy.
Speaker 2:Okay, Delia, but now didn't you and Polly write two cookbooks together? Yeah, it's true. It's amazing how much we managed to get done in that short period of time, but we did. We followed all that cooking and studying up with two cookbooks. The first one was starting over learning to cook with natural foods, and the second was cooking healthy with one foot out the door Quick meals for fast times. If you're going to spend time with someone in the kitchen, make sure it's someone who loves to cook as much as you do someone who has an easy laugh. Thanks, Polly, for those days.
Speaker 5:I'm not the kind of woman that actually ever got into a kitchen when I was growing up. I grew up in a standard American two-parent working home and literally grew up on TV dinners and La Choy Chinese food. Getting into the kitchen wasn't a fun idea for me. It didn't happen. It actually didn't happen until I got sick, when I was diagnosed with thyroid disease. That's what brought me into the kitchen. Actually, no, it was actually right before that, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. That was probably the first time that I got into the kitchen. We were studying macrobiotics. My dad had learned about this funky way to eat that was all the rage back in the 80s. That was helping people with cancer. So that was my first step into the kitchen and today I can't imagine my life outside the kitchen, meaning I get out of the kitchen. But I really love getting in the kitchen Because in the kitchen is where the magic happens.
Speaker 5:In the kitchen I'm in control. I'm in control of the quality of the food that I purchase. I'm in control of how I cook it. I'm in control on how delicious it's going to be. There's so many reasons to get into the kitchen these days. I'm in control of my health. When I get into the kitchen, I'm in control of my vitality. When I get into the kitchen, it's like a form of meditation, when I'm chopping the vegetables and cooking and creating some delicious magic.
Speaker 5:So today I can honestly say that I love getting into the kitchen. It's not a problem for me, where, like I said when I grew up, it was a foreign place. The kitchen was somewhere that you went a few times a year, you know, like around the holidays Christmas, easter, 4th of July maybe, although that was in the backyard. Today it's a whole different experience and, funnily enough, my husband he doesn't enjoy getting into the kitchen as much as I do and often he'll say, oh, we should go out to eat tonight, or I don't want to cook, I'm not in the mood, or I'm too tired, or I'm grouchy, you know men, and I'm like, no, we got all this great food, let's just get in there and chop it up, and cook it up and and make it delicious. And, trust me, when, when you're sitting down to the meal, you'd be like yes, this is exactly what I needed. And that's exactly what happens every single time, every time after we finished cooking together in the kitchen and we're sitting down to a meal. He's like this is perfect. This is just what I needed, right? It's homemade, it's prepared with great ingredients, it's infused with love and good vibes.
Speaker 5:Like I said, the kitchen is a magical place. It's a magical place to create health, relationships, vitality. Oh gosh, don't get me started. I love the kitchen. I love creating in the kitchen. I love being in the kitchen. I love working in the kitchen. I love the kitchen. The only thing I don't love is cleaning the kitchen, but that can be a form of meditation as well. Right, doing the dishes. Wipe on, wipe off, wipe on, wipe off. Get into the kitchen. Your body, mind and spirit will love you for it.
Speaker 2:That was the legendary health and wellness coach, andrea Beeman, who I met in a kitchen Angelica's kitchen in New York City, when she was but a young lass, and I asked her to be on my radio show. Ironically, it was the first radio show interview that she ever gave, and she has gone on to give many, many more, and if you haven't caught her in one of the first I think it's the first season of Top Chef then you must. So, delia, how does getting in the kitchen, cooking with awareness, how does that nourish all five bodies, your physical, your mental, your energy, your wisdom and your divine bodies? All right, well, let's begin with the physical body, because this is the most obvious layer affected by cooking. Nourishing food prepared with care is going to support your digestive system, your vitality and your physical health. Then, using whole, seasonal, natural ingredients provides your body with what it needs to thrive, to be healthy. Eating slowly, chewing well, with gratitude, improves absorption and metabolic balance.
Speaker 2:Cooking with love literally becomes medicine for your body, for your mental body. The way you think and feel about food and how you prepare it impacts your mind. You want a calm, joyful kitchen environment and this will foster a peaceful state of mind. Your intention behind cooking, bringing love, care, presence. This will infuse the food with emotional nourishment and releasing judgment about good or bad food frees the mind from guilt, shame or anxiety. Cooking mindfully brings clarity, emotional ease and mental stability. And then there's your energy body and your food becomes your prana, your life force, and the energy you hold while preparing it really matters. So fresh, vibrant foods are filled with prana. Cooking with focused attention channels pure energy into the food, which then translates into vitality for those who eat it. Rituals like blessing ingredients or chanting while cooking or praying before a meal enhances the energetic quality. Your energy becomes part of the nourishment, since your wisdom body is about deeper knowing, discernment and self-awareness than cooking with devotion. This teaches you discipline, balance and intuitive understanding of your needs, your deeper needs. You begin to notice how certain foods affect your clarity, your mood and the insights you have.
Speaker 2:Preparing food becomes a practice in attunement to nature, to your body and, literally, to your soul. You're not cooking just to eat. You're cooking to learn to listen to what your body-mind really needs. And as for your divine body, the innermost layer, that seat of joy, peace and connection to the sacred, cooking becomes a devotional act. It transcends routine and becomes a form of prayer or meditation. Sharing meals becomes an offering, a communion of love and spirit, whether you're sharing it with friends or you're making meals every day for your family. In such presence, you taste the divine in the flavors, in the silence, in the nourishment. Cooking this way becomes a gateway to bliss and unity. When you go into the kitchen and prepare food with all five bodies in mind, you transform a daily act into a spiritual practice. You're not just preparing a meal, You're feeding the whole self and those you love. The kitchen becomes a temple, the food an offering, and the process a path to wholeness.
Speaker 4:I would say that my experience with cuisine growing up was one of being incredibly blessed. The food that I grew up with was Indian food, although I was raised in England. The food that we ate at home was Indian food with a fusion of Malaysian food, because my father was born and raised in Malaysia. So the Indian food that my mum made who was, by the way, a magnificent, magnificent cook and so the food that we ate was very much based around fresh, everyday food. Dal was a staple in the kitchen, and this would be various types of dals and also, growing up, the culture in the family was that my aunts would come around and we would all make samosas and put them in the freezer. So when guests came around, we always had food at the ready and then, going to the Gurudwara, we were expected well, it was part of the culture to help downstairs in the kitchen and make langar for the whole congregation. So that is where I learned to perfect my art of making round chapatis. The kitchen itself we always had a gas stove and when we were doing large celebrations or we were having a large gathering, we would set up the gas out in the garden because obviously the fumes from all the food would permeate through the, the, so everybody would know when somebody was having a celebration. So the spices my mother would make them fresh, so buying the ingredients and then drying them in the sun and grinding them from chilies to cumin to a blend of garam masala. Haldi, which is turmeric based, would be brought from the Indian store, because that's pretty messy and you wouldn't be grinding that at home, and so the food in general was like medicine for the soul that's how I would describe it and I had no idea back then how lucky I was to be getting such amazing fresh food.
Speaker 4:There were vegetables that you couldn't buy in the UK when I was young, that are now readily available, and so one of my favorites was aloo gobi, which is potato cauliflower, and you know there was the usual spinach and saag and bengen barta, which is eggplant or aubergine as I called it from England.
Speaker 4:But food was just a celebration, the combination of the rice and the vegetables, and we had chicken curry. We didn't have beef in our house because it was not part of our culture to eat that, but what I would say? I have a better, a newfound appreciation for it as I've gotten older and all three of my children cook for themselves, and those are two young men and a young lady, and I just didn't realize that this was not normal, because it's how I grew up and so cooking for everyone was normal, participating in the kitchen, and so I would have to say, making my own hummus, making my own guac, cooking for everyone. To me it's just a magical fusion and a dance that is just intrinsically ingrained into me, rather than having to read recipes and follow those, because I grew up that way and that's how my mother cooked, and so I've got to say that it's a wonderful experience in general so do you any final words for your listeners?
Speaker 2:well, you know I could go on and on with this show and I'm thinking and you hear it here first that I might do an extra show just on cooking and food and being in the kitchen, because I love it so much and I know I could get a lot of really good cooks talking about food and their favorite recipes. So look for that coming up. And I have a little quote from my sister, marianne again, who was a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. She became a baker and she says I think whether you like to cook or bake, it's all about the creative process. And the kitchen is kind of like an artist's studio where you create your work of art. And I would like to add to that that in a woman's kitchen, her creative tools are whole, nutritious foods, her intuition, sometimes a good recipe, but all her senses taste, smell, touch, sight and even the sound of the food cooking. When you cook in the kitchen, you engage all of your five bodies, all of your five tastes and all five of your senses all of your five tastes and all five of your senses. And doing so creates meals that will nurture you through a long, healthy, joy-filled life. Anyway, that's what I would wish for you. And you know, the magic happens in the one room. Every house and apartment automatically comes with Yep, the kitchen.
Speaker 2:I want to thank my guests Linda Wells, polly Pitchford, andrea Beeman and Colta Brough for again contributing their wisdom and their insights. You can read more about these wonderful women on my contributors page on fivebodywisdomcom and check out my other website, deliaqcom. There you can sign up to receive my Sunday guidance email and updates on new podcast episodes. You've been listening to 5 Body Wisdom interviews with ourselves. I'm Delia Quigley. Thanks so much for listening, until next time.
