Jules Blaine Davis: Turning on the Fire Again
Jules Blaine Davis is known as The Kitchen Healer. I met Jules nearly a decade ago, after hearing rumors about this miraculous woman who lived on the other side of Los Angeles: I was told that she could restore a desire to cook, for one. But that her work was actually much deeper than that: That she probed long-held stories we hold about ourselves when it comes to our appetites and their validity, as well as whether we believe we deserve to be nourished. I spent an afternoon with her—walking around her backyard barefoot and telling her about my relationship with food—and left her house deepened, newly dedicated to turning on the fire in my own house, and reclaiming the kitchen as a place where I could be—not as a zone where there was more for me to do. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM JULES BLAINE DAVIS:
The Kitchen Healer: The Journey to Becoming You
Follow Jules on Instagram
Jules’s Website
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN:
So for people who are listening, the context, I had heard of Jules, the famous kitchen healer, and I think I emailed you and went over to see you maybe almost 10 years ago, but I was curious, of course, about what you were doing, because it was like whispered about the kitchen healer. And I was in this practice, even though I learned how to cook as a kid, et cetera, of buying groceries to make meals and then letting everything go bad. It was really weird, I'm sure that you encounter this, right? So I don't know if you remember that, but you worked me over in a very loving way.
JULES BLAINE DAVIS:
Well, you were ready.
ELISE:
<laugh>.
JULES:
You were ready, whether you knew it or not. That was amazing. Was that a decade ago? That's just, I don't know. That's so not okay, but okay, we'll surrender and accept
ELISE:
Maybe eight years ago. I mean, so I went to your house, you had me take off my shoes and I walked around your backyard barefoot. And this is before everyone was talking about earthing and grounding, but you just had me walk and feel myself in the ground and hang with the chickens. And then you, I don't even know what you do. How do you explain yourself to people?
JULES:
How do I explain myself to people? I mean, for the longest time, because I was shaped in a family of origin where shapeshifting was a really great survival technique, so I got to use it in my profession, so when I would meet somebody at the market or at a gathering or if they said, you know, what do you do? And I would say, I'm a kitchen healer. They would say, what's a kitchen healer? And then I would do some, you know, marvel and like figure out the font of that person within five seconds, their emotional font, their whole vibe. And then I would create three or four very long sentences around what it is a kitchen healer was to meet them where they were.
I'm so glad I've healed since then, that was a really exhausting approach. But that was me out of the gate. And so in terms of now after writing this book, the the analogy is pretty terrible I don't eat veal, but if you do, good for you and I love you, it's like tenderizing a veal when writing a book like this, you know, it's just like, I've been pounded over and over again in the realms of, what is this and what's of service and who needs to hear it and what is a kitchen healer? So thanks for the question. A kitchen healer is a grief holder and that is what my work is. So I hold the grief, shame, and vulnerability around the stories of how we were nourished or not in our homes of origin and whatever those stories are, they either help us to cross the doorframe into the kitchen from 800 emails, CEO-ing, mothering, business-ing, or they keep us out of that doorframe. And so my work is that I meet you inside that doorframe and I take your hand and we move in together into the kitchen, which is a space where we can rewrite those stories. We can grieve into the soup, we can feel our feet, we can breathe and we can change the story around what it looked like, felt like, smelled like to be nourished. And it's different for everyone. It's a custom beautifully blended experience.
ELISE:
It's really beautiful. And as someone who has experienced only one session, it shifted something in me. I don't cook as much as I would like, but you effectively, just to summarize, it was just a very subtle paradigm shift of instead of thinking about this as one more thing you need to do, find a way to make the kitchen a place where you can be. And that was enough for me. It's interesting thinking about it, but there was a considerable block, as we discussed. And I'll never forget this, I don't know if you had poached them or they were from a can, but you fed poached pears and condensed milk or something, it was delicious.
JULES:
That's so amazing. They definitely did not come from a can, but I love us and they can, they can come from a can, but they're so easy to make that by the time you find the can opener in that drawer with all the dust or whatever's in there that crumbs from snacks, you probably would be able to poach the pair, get the aroma, turn on the fire, and you'd have meditation over with for the day. You've grounded yourself. And many things could have happened with poaching that pair. It's not condensed milk. I love you so much because the thickness and the sweetness of the experience that you remember that you had a somatic experience with, it must have been just kind of out of this world. And it wasn't, it was incredibly accessible. And that's the whole point, is that when you share Elise about the block and that just through one session, that's what you needed at that point in your life.
You were an incredibly busy human being, running a really major operation, and doing 4,000 things in one moment. And so we might have a hunger to really be able to do that and show that we're capable and have that connection to our strength and our power. And then we really long to make some rice and a three minute egg. We just wanna have something soft and to do that inside that nonstop, just, that energy, there's no modeling for that yet until now, because you're either one or the other. And if you're trying to do both, you just, you have to hire a team, which I'm all about. It's the whole end of the book, hiring a team and the permission around what it looks like to cook and nourish, but it really isn't even cooking, you know, this because you live inside all the kind of trendy words of healing. And then when you actually embody inside your own life, which you have to meet a lot of things to do that right; acceptance, surrender all the things to finally get to you and who you are.
And so once you become who you are, which is the subtitle of this book, and you take journeys over and over again, never graduating from this program, right? It's like, okay, I'm forever in recovery around what it looks like to nourish my deepest life inside a culture that is so hungry that doesn't know how to model this, reflect this, or show me how to do this. So I’ve got to learn how to do this on my own. And everything comes up, right? Like, oh, I have too much help or I don't have enough help or we don't really have the funds for that, but where's possibility in that? Where's permission, where's freedom, where's ease? I mean, in every moment we are given the opportunity to get closer to who we are or farther away. And usually we really do need a team for that. I do. I need a team for that.
ELISE:
There are many directions I want to go in and we’ll let's talk about food in a bit and the way that so many of us, I think believe that everything we make needs to be complex, multicourse, et cetera, so let's just put a pin on that and we'll talk about that and wood board love and just feeding in a bit. But I want to go back to these early stories and the intergenerational load that women carry. Right? And you talk about it as how so many of our moms likely, what was it? I don't remember how you say it, but like, essentially that our mother's selflessness silence is the biggest, loudest voice in the room of our childhood, right? That we never necessarily watched our mothers nourish themselves. Is that, in your work, as you're teaching women how to turn on the fire, is that the biggest wound?
JULES:
So your question is, is the biggest wound that our mothers were selfless?
ELISE:
Yeah. Or that we come from a long conditioning around women who were never taught to feed themselves first, who maybe took the smallest piece or never considered their own needs? And that's what we grew up imbibing and witnessing as a model? And so just even the sort of gear shift change into a different way of being, which you're talking about nourishing ourselves, we don't really have a model for that. If anything, it's aberrant, right?
JULES:
Yeah. I feel like I need a dictionary to connect with you because you're such genius. And what I want to say is, from what I heard, that I could go, oh yeah, wait, I don't know what that word means.
ELISE:
Aberrant, meaning like we're somehow, almost disobeying what we've been taught or there's a betrayal almost in doing things differently than how we were raised.
JULES:
I think usually we might meet that, you know, I hesitate to say the one story is this, right? Because there's not one story. It is so layered. It is such a layered cake. It lives in so many stories and it's historical. It's patriarchal. You could gather a group of really smart, badass women and they would all have a line of what their work is in this conversation. So my approach is more of the below the neck emotional stories we carry. And yet this conversation includes, I mean it's emotionally archeological, if that's even a word. It's so many things. And so in terms of, yes, one story being that the mom cooked everything and then went upstairs to either the chardonnay or the bed or both. Sure. That's a story where you didn't see your mom at the table even though she created everything. Sure. Self-sacrifice and whatever. And all of the stories that live in that. I mean the deepest exhaustion where you can't even think about, you know, and I think a lot of us have this and that's the major shift in the parenting now is like, oh, what will my kids be if I.., right? I don't think any of us had, like my mom was definitely not like, I wonder if my decision here is her future. No, that's not what was happening. And so I would say that yes, I hesitate to say, oh, the one story I would say the, that is one big story. A few other ones, are restaurant families, right? Food everywhere, food nowhere in the fridge. Farm families, mid-country, eight children, half a cantaloupe molding. You know, there's so many different stories where the outside looks like they're good.And the inside is so hungry.
And so when I present this, when I was doing the emotional intuitive horoscope font on what the kitchen healer was to each person, you know, what would happen is it would open up something in someone, it would awaken something like, oh yeah, I mean my grandma cooked, but then when my kid, when my parents got divorced at 12 the food stopped and then it was frozen meals because mom had to work or mom went back to school and found herself becoming empowered, right? So it was like something had to be sacrificed. And so what was sacrificed, because we didn't have the tools to meet it in the middle, we didn't have the tools of like a wood board love, we didn't have the tools of a bridge. It was so extreme. It was like, I'm either doing everything or I'm not able to be there at all.
And the shame and the grief in that of our mothers or, I'm not a historian, but this is such a historical conversation, too and based in lineage and also just also the land being an offering, being connected to earth, the fast, quick, cheap way, right? Like all of everything is included in the conversation around what it looks like to nourish your deepest life. Like every single thing. So even when, you know, you interview amazing people, Gabor Mate and all these people, the trauma, the peace, addiction, the switching, borderline narcissism, all of it is connected to how we were nourished or not. It's a really expansive and what I call “forever conversation” around what it looks like now, today, to rewrite the story, to rewrite the many stories. Because for women, and then again, if we're not fed, no one's fed, right? So it's like for us, our body is connected to it. How we see ourselves. If we're doing enough, if we are enough, perfectionism, the event, the angst-like energy around people coming over, or what's for dinner tonight? You know, we carry that story which we wrote many years ago in the article. Like we carry that story all day long. You know, even if we're held by support, if we're not really woven in there and we haven't even turned on the light for our kids, like, “hey, mommy works for these days and then these other days I want to do this with you with cooking. And these days we're going to have “this, this” like, we could turn the light on to where the shame and the vulnerability lives so that we can rewrite the story together because we're really changing and healing a legacy.
ELISE:
Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because I remember having this conversation with you and you brought up the patriarchy, but this patriarchal idea of women tethered to the kitchen in their apron strings, our responsibility, our duty, the core of our being. This idea of being a selfless health-meet, the nostalgia of the 1950s housewife, which was really only in existence for a decade or so, but has, you know, completely penetrated every part of culture. And so I think for me too, I had to work through some of my rage, ambivalent resentment about this idea. And you are so interesting to me because you are holding that reality and then also talking about how essential to our natures, and this I think is probably a genderless idea, this idea of nurturance and care. This includes men as well, but to not have the kitchen light on, to not turn the fire on is sort of a cold, empty existence. I don't know if that's right, but you were sort of trying to bring me back into a different way of thinking about this. Less of, as mentioned, as something to do and more as this is part of who I am. Can you expand on that for people? Yes. Cause you'll say it much better.
JULES:
Well, what you're speaking to, Elise, is ritual. You're speaking to ritual, which I feel we really long for. Because how would I know that or how would I even have an inkling towards that is when you come over and the candles lit and there's a wood board of just seriously chopped apple and some cheddar, it's not an event, there's something that softens in us. So again, I'm all about packing for a trip for two days or a week is the same for me, I'm like, these are my favorite things. And so in the kitchen, even saying “in the kitchens” a lot of our minds divide like, I don't like my kitchen. I feel separate from it, because we don't again know how to draw that bridge. And when we're drawing the bridge to the kitchen, we're actually drawing the bridge to ourselves. That's what I'm speaking about. The kitchen isn't just the heart of the home. It's the body. It's the body. It's my body in there. And so in the realms of turning on the fire, someone just said at the reading last week, she said, I came to your class like 15 years ago and the thing you taught me has literally stayed with me every single day: I come home, I turn on the oven, I don't know what I'm cooking, I just get it going. And so many people that had newly known me, like within the last 10 or five years reflected that, oh my god, I loved that. You know, because that was in the first miracles of like, just get it to 375 and then put something in there before shower, bath time, signing permission, slips for other people.
In the book, we get to do that for ourselves. So I find that in these amazing conversations, Elise, that I am, I call it out as you know, I'm the fantasy. I'm the piercing fantasy police, because this separation piece is so not necessary. It's just again, what was modeled like work and then got to drudge it and make a dinner. You know, it was like food and nourishing and being in there was such a thing. It was such a thing. And some of us, it wasn't a thing. So people then don't enter into the conversation from that place. They're like, oh yeah, my mom wove it in. You know, she came from a culture, you know, because when you share about the culture, it's like, it really is. And I say this all the time, I grew up here in America, this is not the same in other cultures where it's so traditional, it's so based. It's cooking and food and something on low from yesterday is woven into the day. So in the realms of like turning on the fire, whether it's just lighting a candle to get in there and then get the kettle going for the tea or the coffee maker, or literally the mug warmer in the cubicle, whatever is going to warm something. You get to join too. You get to be like, oh, I'm warming something. I'm gonna soften too. I'm gonna take this minute. I'm at the kettle. This happens to me all the time. I run in there and then I feel my feet, I say it throughout the book. I do it all the time. I'm doing this work too. I'm also busy and crazy and two kids and teenagers and navigating a culturalist culture, right? We're all doing it.
And so I'll go in there and i’ll even feel that my foot is like turned. So even as I'm gathering a water or I'm turning on the kettle, I'll flatten my feet onto the earth. I'll just, just, that is, I matter. I'm here, I have a body before the next meeting or whatever it is, I'm gonna make a tea before I leave the house. I'm gonna just cut up a little something and make a little, you know, even if it's like a strawberry carton, love for the car and just cut up a few things instead of ordering from a place 45 minutes. Gotta wait. Like what does it look like to meet ourselves and our hunger over and over and over again? And I think that you're speaking of ritual and it can be a ritual and let's not make it a fantasy, like a big thing.
We're just, honestly, we're just feeding ourselves. And when our children see us eat, when our kids see us eat, I just had this beautiful conversation with a woman yesterday, you know, from the high chair, right? They're strapped in. I'll never forget that freedom of the car seat or the high chair. I know we have older kids now and I definitely do. I have one who's 16 and, and you know, that's a whole nother thing, you know, getting them in a car to drive. But in the realms of that freedom, just walking around the car, like, I'm free. Someone is in the chair. And so what do we do? We go do the dishes, we go, we go do things, to get things done. Obviously who wouldn't do that? Because now my hands are free and they're eating.
But see, they're seeing me. They're watching me. So they're eating alone. And then we have, and I share this in the book this, I believe that a big part of this is why the picky eater is even birthed. Because, I mean, I don't go to lunch with you and I'm like, Hey, I'm just gonna get some work done. Let me just, I brought my laptop and I'm just gonna get a few emails done while you talk to me and we'll do this together. I mean, you know, I wouldn't do that. I mean, especially a lunch with you. No, I wouldn't do it with anybody, you know, and so it's like what happens to that person on many levels, biologically, psychologically, right? All of a sudden we're not hungry. And so it's a really big thing.
ELISE:
It is a big thing. And I think, I mean that's something that I think so many adults carry too, right? Like the utility of eating or standing in the kitchen and just shoveling something in our faces or mindlessly like not even really tasting. This is definitely my problem. I have no idea why. If it's boarding school or college, like when I aren't learned to eat so fast, I just slam it and I'm done. And it's not a sensory experience at all. Or very pleasurable. Right?
JULES:
And I wonder if the bridge to that could be I'm doing it again. I see me and I love me. I'm learning how to do this. Like, it's so intimate. It makes me wanna cry. It's like, yeah, just stopping for a minute to just go, I know I'm doing this right now to us becuase I'm busy and I don't know any other way right now. Literally just naming it. Like that's all you have got to do, because you're gonna know what to do. You're one of the smartest women I know. You're gonna know what to do. The being part which you keep sharing and bringing up. That's the being part like I'm seeing me doing this because you're, you know, once that space is made and that grief around shoving the food in and it's like, oh, okay, I don't wanna do this anymore to myself. Like this is a violent act. I don't wanna do this anymore.
And then once you do that, you'll set yourself up because you have support, or you'll make the shake in the morning and something else will win. Like you're nourishing you will win over something else that's winning right now. Whether it's work or making money or whatever it is, because we all have that. It's a value system. It'll win over. And for me, and I share this in the beginning of the book, it's the story of origin. I used to wake up, you know, cray cray for Coco Puffs. I mean, my kids woke me up and it was crazy. And it was just, and the treadmill didn't end until the night and until I realized I'm just gonna keep going with the same lineage I came from, which was abusive and scary and not okay and not safe.
And so I'm gonna keep giving and be selfless. I'm not gonna have a self. So I started to wake up before the sun came up because that was so important to me to change the story. I didn't know that at the time. I just knew, oh my God, I'm not stopping ever. And that's when I would turn on the fire, I'd make a tea, I might get some cauliflower in the oven. Like I might just get a few things going to do a little breathing. And then like later in the day when I had 17 things going on, I'd make sure to go, oh, there's the cauliflower, it's out already, and so there's a way to do this again, it's so custom blended and it really does require that slow down of naming it when you're doing it. Because we're all doing that. I'm also at the counter like, oh my gosh, I haven't eaten all day and this is not gonna work out for me later this afternoon, with the headache that's gonna meet me and all the other things. So it's like, okay, it gets real industrial, like you said. And so, I would say that when we name what we're doing, we're not bad. We're not meaning to harm. We really aren't. We're just trying to get through the day. And so when we do that, it's much deeper, that's the whole thing, right? All the amazing, intermittent fasting and all the things, you know, that I could ask you about forever. Like, what do you think I should do for this? Or there's something on my arm, you know, what should I eat? You know, all the phenomenal experts out there on food and eating and the biology of it and the all of it this is under that. It's the tap root.
ELISE:
Well, and I have a lot of feelings about that. Not that I don't encourage people to accrue knowledge about themselves and their bodies, but I do worry that the more obsessed that we become with optimizing every bite, we're just continuing to disconnect from our own intelligence, which so many of us have never really understood how to tap into in the first place. So it's continuing to outsource ideas about what we should eat. And again, I mean everyone should do exactly what they want. But I am on a long journey, in fits and starts, of trying to reconnect, as you said to myself and what am I actually hungry for?
JULES:
Who am I?
ELISE:
Who am I?
JULES:
That above the neck, it's the yes, everything you just shared is that mindset instead of that below the neck conversation.
ELISE:
Yeah. And I think so many of us have been, and I'm not discounting the reality of this, that food processed food is engineered for addiction, et cetera. I'm not saying that that's not true, but I think in this idea that we're being perpetually being hijacked by the food industry or big food, whatever, that we assume of course that we can't be trusted. And again, I don't need to eat like 800 Doritos. Sometimes I have a few if my kids have them, but it's not, I think that that has been overstated in a way that I'm not going to go to McDonald's and like slam for Big Mac. It's just, I don't know, it's not gonna happen. But I think that there's this mythology that we, if we were to just be a little bit more allowing with ourselves that we'll be completely out of control. You know, that a flip will switch and instead I just see us tamping down ever more on our own life force and divorcing ourselves from this idea that like I can make good choices. Particularly with planning.
Let's talk about wood board love because it's such a beautiful gesture and it is a way to encourage, you know, cutting up an apple, as you told me, is more inviting. Like nobody can resist a sliced apple in the way that they can resist a whole apple. But can you talk to people about that, about loading up a wood board with just whatever.
JULES:
Yes, yes. Loading up a wood board, bring those burritos in, or Doritos, burritos or Doritos, whatever you want. I love wood board love. And I just want mention before, as we draw the bridge, which is wood board love, it really is a bridge toward ourselves, towards the permission and ease and freedom that's in the kitchen for us. What you just shared was so powerful and it's so important, we leave ourselves when we think about food. If you ever travel to Europe or you travel to places that are much older than us and have tradition in their food, worn spoons and something warm on the stove, you know, or even in neighborhoods in LA you'll smell really beautiful aromas of food because there's cultures in different areas that are pretty rooted in their stories.
And so yeah, when we leave ourselves, which when I think about food, I leave myself, I really do like, oh, what's gonna be good? My stomach's been hurting. I don't really know. I mean, it really goes into a whole other area of my brain instead of lighting the candle, feeling my feet. And then what I share in the book are the altars of food. I have bowls of, right now seasonally, we have Kew Tangerine, we have persimmons, and I have them out. I have a board out and I have a knife out. I don't go looking. Because if I go looking, that's another thing to do on my list. And I probably didn't do a great job with scheduling today anyway, you know, especially with the holiday. And that time is so heightened. Even if you literally leave space, I have areas in my calendar, space, rest, you know, and I'm a mom of two and so many others, and I'll say to myself, I love you, you know, I'm glad you didn't put an actual appointment here, but you have other things going on.
So, right, anyway, all to say we will now enter the wood board love bridge and cross it in the realms of what it looks like to have a wood board that you love. Not the poultry plastic board. Nope. That needs to go. And the wood is the earth and a knife you love. It does not need to be fancy, unless you love fancy. And it really is about how things feel, how things feel in your hand, how things feel when you're seeing them. Eeven if it's just one little area in your kitchen. If you have roommates, if you have help, and you're so distant from your kitchen because you have so many other things going on, right? You're going to meet grief and that's where I help you, right? It's like you're gonna meet it if it's not your regular day to day thing and you'll meet it anyway.
I meet it all the time in there, and in terms of wood board love, it is whatever you have. The beauty of wood board love though is that if you shop for the board, it really changes. You don't have a list, you don't need a list. You just have the intention of like, oh, I'm shopping for the board. And then when we normally make a board, I mean we've been seeing all these butter spreads and all these things, right? Even people said to me, Jules, you know, my HR was like, do a thing. I'm like, no, I'm not doing a butter spread. I love you, it's not a thing. The last thing I'm gonna make about nourishing my life is that it's a thing as an event. No, it's the best party ever inside me 24/7. And then what's so amazing is that, so I'll shop for the board and then I'll have fun.
I'll have, like right now there's in my fridge, there's watermelon radishes, those beautiful fuchsia. And then I have some goat cheese that beauty loves, that's like a, I think it's an apricot goat cheese or even if you just have goat cheese where you can drizzle honey, how do you drizzle honey? A fork. You know, this is really easy stuff, right? But it's again, not easy if the stories are louder than what it is to get in there. So when we, oh, we don't cook and I don't cook, or I don't know how to do that, or I don't know, there's something we are divorcing ourselves from what really truly we long for. I believe we all want and yearn to feed ourselves. And so the wood board, what's so great about it is that anybody can do it. And then when your kids get older, they start to do it.
And it's empowering, it's self-empowering. It's really beautiful. We're not waiting for a party or people to come over and make a whole thing. You can do it right now when we get off the call. You can have it for your next interview. You know, you can have it next to you. So it is whatever you have. But also I think the beauty of the ease of it is that when you go to the store, you can be like, oh, for the board and then whatever, it could be roasted veg on there but then that also, if that's an afternoon thing, and again, there's so many pages in the book about wood board, love the morning one, you know, waking up and doing one and your kids waking up to that, so they don't have to wait to be fed because them waiting to be fed is so incredibly stressful on us. Because we're also waiting to be fed as we stand at the corner and shove food in our mouth. It's just the story keeps going. And so if it's there, then I have my time, even if it's four seconds. And so that freedom, like I was sharing about the car seat, going around the car to my seat, you know, it's like those little moments, especially with “littles” are so profound and powerful and nourishing and then that midday or even the after school wood board, that's so beautiful. And again, what we'll do in our minds fantasy alert is we'll set it up so that it's perfect and amazing every day. And then, oh, you have that one day where something's come up with your partner or your marriage is on a string or whatever it is and you can't get to the board. Like where are you, where are you with that?
How much love, how much love can you give to yourself, not being able to do it? It's not getting it right, it's not fixing a problem. So I bring the wood board in the car. I have a wood board in the car with the knife because I live in LA where I have a car, and I can do that. And then if I don't have food with me, I can go anywhere and gather some food and make it on the wood board for soccer or whatever, wherever we were. That was years ago now. I don't show up at the skate park, you know what I mean with wood board that that wouldn't do it. But then the evening, if I'm cooking and I'm late, right? I'm rushing, you know, because that's in my bloodline. I don't want to rush, but I'm happy it's happening anyway. How can I love myself? How can I love, okay, I'm going to cut up some food, whatever I'm making goes on the board for a little bit. And then, oh, but now we're coming up against another question that I hear all the time, which is, “wait, I've fed them already so much. What if I'm feeding too much?”
Let's look in the mirror, let's find that story. What is too much? If it's on the board board, if they're having their own conversation with it. And it's like a recovery with wood board love. There's a lot of language, do not ask them if they're hungry. Do not tell them what to eat on the board. Like let them be, you know, that you don't need to say, oh there's brie and crackers. Like I see it, I'm an adult. I see. So do they, the kids see what's happening, they see your stress, they see my stress, they see it all. So if there's food in the midst of that, there's a place to land. There's a soft place to land. They can come up, I think in your house you have this where you have a, a kitchen island kind of thing where they can be there and you can be cooking and then people will say, oh, but they, they'll be full for dinner. Okay, they can be full for dinner, I'll warm it for their lunch tomorrow. We're gonna have a body again tomorrow. So we'll have to eat again. Like, it's okay. But again, if we're looking to fix something or we're doing and it's industrial, then we're pissed that you're not eating dinner. But if you're making something you love and everything is what everybody is loving, right? It's like there's a dynamic shift.
ELISE:
Yeah. And I think early on, letting kids, as you said, “be” and figure out the parameters of their own hunger without insistence in either direction. I'm just watching the natural patterns of my kids. I don't think they're unusual, but my youngest will eat so much sometimes. And then other times I'm like, did you eat anything really all day? I mean, in my head. I don't quite know how they modulate, but it's really interesting to watch. And as you know from all your wood love training, when you actually cut something up and put it out or mash an avocado, whip up quick guacamole and put it out, people come, they flock.
JULES:
They will say they're not hungry if you ask them. Cause there's so many stories on that, oh, you don't have to do anything for me, I'll get food later. Or, you know, whatever it is. I still find myself doing this. My son was sick the night of the book reading and I thought like, there's nothing here. And he's like, not well, but he, I know he had hunger the whole time and he's 16, like he can defrost a thing or whatever. And I was so like no one I know would be cooking before the thing, I was gonna go pick up my mom and I'm like, I gotta boil some water and just make a little pasta just so he has something. Even if he doesn't need it, I don't care. And I have to tell you, that grounded me, that grounded me for the reading.
I didn't need to look at what I was gonna read. I needed to boil water and make pasta for him, I said to him, you'll probably never see this in your life where someone's preparing for something that's coming in 10 minutes. People are coming from wherever and I'm boiling water. Like this is where I ground, you know? And it felt so good to know. I left him with something, those are really important values for me, you know? And so he was nourished and then of course I felt like, okay, at least you have something now I can go do the reading. I mean, it's really amazing how deep that is for me.
ELISE:
Do your kids cook?
JULES:
Ocean does cook. Yeah. He loves, he loves to cook. I mean, he's a full on American teenager. He loves a good fried chicken sandwich, with the craze of all the fried chicken places. And Beauty, yeah, she, she likes to be served <laugh>. She really does. And like you were saying about your son, you know, she'll be really hungry. And at this point now, like I'll do a wood board and I'll sit with her and eat a lot of the time. Sometimes I won't. She’ll read and eat and then I'll think, okay, is she focused on her eating or she just reading? Like, I don't know about that. You know, there's like every area as a parent, it's like let go and we're letting go again 10 seconds later and now we're letting go again. And so when she'll say, I'm still hungry, I'll say, okay, well I want you to drink a glass of water. And then, of course what's hilarious, and this is a forever thing I'm learning, how about Jules, you drink a glass of water?
ELISE:
Right.
JULES:
How about you drink glass of water with her? You know, because then she'll do that and then she'll forget she was hungrybecause she was really thirsty. And then I'm like, wait, have I drank water today? I mean, putting it back on myself.
ELISE:
That's a good point. Yeah and so many of the recipes in the book and so much of what you teach is about simplicity, roasting something, cutting up something that's fresh and using a little leftover here or there. I know we touched on this briefly, but I think, you know, growing up, my mom's an incredible cook, she grew up in a food scarce home and I think that's probably partially why I'm so pressured when I eat, as probably old stories ther’re around not having enough food. And she taught herself how to cook and she used to make really impressive meals. I mean, she still does, but what you teach has become more my style where instead of a main and a side and a salad, and I mean, I'm happy when I make one thing, but I still have anxiety about that. That somehow by not making two vegetable sides I'm under-nourishing or underperforming, would probably be more accurate. Do you encounter that a lot? This idea that it has to be so extra, so beautiful, so perfect versus just a simple preparation of something that's essentially a good ingredient?
JULES:
I would say that what I encounter is the relief in it. Because when people go, oh my God, I don't have to make the thing with the thing. I mean, for me, I'm gonna go order that, I can't wait to go order that. I mean you just said it, Elise, you just knocked it out of the park. I mean under nourishing, underperforming. Yeah. You just did it. I mean, that's it right there is like, you know, one of the last lines in the book is you are enough. And the only person that can really come to really deeply, somatically, lovingly, heartfully, gratefully come into that is you. And that's why it's the journey to becoming you, you know, the recipes in the book. I mean, at this point, when I work with clients, we really, you know, everybody wants to get right in the kitchen and learn the three tips and the thing and the thing and the thing and the thing.
And if we are ever to be together again in there, it would be in all of the things you've shared in this gorgeous time together, it's so deep. It's so deep. And it really does nourish all these other parts of us, our marriages, you know, why we react or respond to something, the rhythm we live in, if we're actively living and where we're doing it. Like, it's so fascinating that I'm so fascinated about it, even though I've been doing it for, I mean, a million years. And that's why I'm still doing it because it is a forever conversation around what does it look like to nourish our lives is truly the question. Who am I and these recipes, quinoa, and the rice cooker, you know, letting something do while you be in your life. You're in here in your room with your mic and the rice cooker's on with quinoa. And so then you'll cut up some gouda, maybe some roasted veg from the dinner you went to last night and you can make a love bowl for yourself. And it's just a part of the day. It it may feel like a total win. I'm all about wins and rewards, and sometimes I'll go to a restaurant, even for lunch and I'll be thinking about dinner. I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna get…because tonight I'm gonna lead a meeting. Okay, let me think about what, who I have tonight at home. You know, and so I'm thinking, I'm getting ahead of it for my own nervous system, for my own self, and if it's a place that I know the food can hold or something, maybe it's warming it up and then, oh, and I have this other thing I'm gonna make that'll be easy while I take a shower.
And it doesn't overwhelm me like I have enough to overwhelm me. Our life, our culture right now. I mean, nourishing is truly, honestly, it is an activism, the minute you are nourished, the decisions you make versus when you weren't nourished, they're gonna be really different the way you react to your kids. How we parent, how we are in our partnerships or our work. It's like when we're nourished, it's another part of us is being our truest part, who we truly are. And so if we can all be a little closer to that, that's the activism I'm tending. You know, that really is, that's an advocacy for a culture that's really hungry. A world that really needs us to care for ourselves. It's not just an “I” it really is a “we” movement.
ELISE:
This is a complicated question that you live and work in Los Angeles and I live and work in Los Angeles. And there is a lot of fixation on body size and keeping ourselves as small as possible. And I'm sure you encounter that a lot, right? And a lot of dysmorphia and a lot of conditioning around. You know, I think for most of us, like I have no idea what size I'm at least supposed to be, right? Like in many ways I've been in battle with my body for my entire life. How do you contend with that when you work with women? I mean, is that typically what you run into almost immediately?
JULES:
I think, you know, I'm like the homeopath in the village. I'm like, the last place people find, they're like, I've been to everyone and I heard the podcast with Elise and you're the one, I'm like, okay. And so, you know, that homeopath is exhausted and also like, “yay!” beause if I'm your last stop, then we got this. So, of course, you know, this service, this kind of conversation that we're in, Elise is held by a greater energy. I'm just the vessel. So the people that find me and find this conversation like you did, you were ready. And this was years ago, you were like, when can we like do something? And I'm like, well, you have to experience it first. I wasn't interested. You didn't go in the kitchen. I wasn't interested in the like, let's get everybody on board. I want you to experience you, so that you can come from a place when you're sharing it. Which is again, such a healing. Like all my healers heal in the way they're healing me, and that is the greatest gift they give me. Right? That's a true healer. I'm living this beside you. And so in terms of body image, again, we're being invited to who are you when we really open the conversation around bodies, body types, seeing what we see in the mirror, who we, who we are is so far away. Like we're, again, we've separated and when we learn that is everything, we're not voting for everything. When we vote for the people, we vote for when we buy the kind of food we buy, we are in such deep conflict with that. When we separate, like we look in the mirror and we're like, oh my gosh, my ass is becoming a part of the earth, in the last two years it's just sliding, where is it going? Hey, where are you going? I loved you. Wait, you know, unconditional loving, which we meet over and over and in the kitchen when we're giving ourselves grace and permission and ease with how we are nourishing our lives. It's the same thing with our bodies. It's the same thing. So when we know where the story is coming from, we go back seeing our moms look in the mirror, right? For me and my story, it was all about belonging. And my mom's favorite word was “Zoctic” I mean, I needed a dictionary just like I've needed here <laugh>. I was like, what is Zoctic, like what is going on?And that it was in my lineage and that I was, you know, I was just probably the blowfish in Nemo trying to survive my childhood, right? And so when I start to learn that and I think about wow, I was thick, I was thick when I was younger because I was surviving, oh, my body was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself. I love you. Thank you for doing that. And when I start to feel unsafe or I'm in a relationship that isn't really working or I'm…, it's an invitation, just like we shared about you at the counter, like, oh, it's happening again. Don't feel safe. I'm scared. I need support. I really, I really need help. You know?
And so when we encounter that to kind of big question, like you said, and it's complicated on many levels, but when we learn about what the story is like, oh, and then check the source of that of my mom and what her mom was doing, because she was rewriting a story to leave eight siblings in the Carolinas to become something. She was the one, my grandmother, Cleopatra, which went as she went as Pat, kill us now, Cleopatra left South Carolina to come to Miami and become a nurse and like make something of herself. So there was a can of crab meat and I had a lettuce on the table. My mom was the oldest of four. And so it was like belonging and survival. And so then it's 2022, almost 2023, how do I wanna rewrite the story? Where does it come from around belonging? How do I wanna belong? And so when I get to know more of where the story is around my thighs or my knees or my tush or whatever, I can get closer to myself to loving my body and myself inside that. And that, I would say that's pre anything else coming to invite you deeply into this vessel that we have. I hope that answers the question. It's really layered.
ELISE:
No, it is really layered. And on one side it's talking to a man who does really deep body work, and we were talking about weight and he was saying on one side it's insulating, it's grounding, it's shielding. And then the double edged sword of it can be that it, it's can be dense, it can weigh us down, or hold us back. But I don't think that any or most women I'll say have really interrogated the deeper, the deeper lesson there. I certainly try, and it's not really for me.
JULES:
It's not, you know, there's nothing, I think when we get to the place where there's nothing to fix, like when we leave that topical conversation with our bodies, like if we're willing, it's a risk. It feels really risky. It's courageous. The first pages of the book are about courage. It, it's so courageous to leave a story, to leave a relationship that is so deeply embedded in the lineage. It's huge work. And I call it the quiet work. You know? And maybe that'll be the title of my next book. It really is the quiet work. No one sees it. But when we do that, we lose more weight than we could ever imagine. When we really shift that relationship, I'm no longer doing this anymore to you. I want to be with you. I love you. I'm so grateful for my life, then we change, right?
Because when we're in a relationship where no one's, you know, they're not doing enough and we're not da, da da, and the cells are all like, what the hell is going fight or flight? So no one's moving. I mean, I don't know if you've ever waited for your period, but nothing's coming. I mean, like, nothing in that heightened awareness, nothing is gonna flow and be natural and energetic and leave when it's not needed. And I'm talking about body, fat, weight, whatever. When we lose that and we go deeper into our lives and we really choose to be in an intimately connected to ourselves, finding our feet relationship. I mean, that's what happened for me. I did everything, I was like, oh my God, I need to fix this. And when I started to really shift that relationship many, many, many years ago everything shifted. My body shape, shifted, my mind. I mean, you know, it's a journey. It's a journey we go on.
ELISE:
Well, thank you for being you. There's no one like you. And thank you for your beautiful book and hopefully I'll see you in the flesh sometime soon.
JULES:
I really wanna see you soon.
ELISE:
Let's make a plan.
JULES:
Thank you so, so much. Thank you so much. Of course. For this. I love you.
ELISE:
I love you too.
ELISE:
You know, it’s funny, when I went to see Jules and we did our session I saw her kitchen, I think we might have started our conversation in the kitchen before we moved to the backyard, but we didn’t spend any time in the kitchen. She actually cooked for me and it’s interesting to think back on that now, because I think for so many of us cooking and the way it’s been elevated beautifully over the years in our lifetimes really into this art form and this idea of achieving the limits of a chef: that the food should be perfectly balanced, nourishing, and also beautiful and complete, is just a lot of pressure. And that you need to know all of these skills in order to achieve this idea. I think as Jules kept saying, there are these bridges; she kept using that word, letting ourselves off the hook and putting ourselves on a bridge where we can achieve really simple, but beautiful food. This is the carrot ginger soup recipe: “Gather olive oil, organic ginger, organic carrots, water, salt, love, tools, a pot you love, a wood spoon, a bowl for peels and nubs, an immersion blender or Vitamix, or any blender you have,” and that’s how she cooks, and that’s how she feeds. There is really no complexity in this book, in a way that I think will bring a lot of relief. And there are beautiful writings throughout and heart work, moments of journaling, or reflection as we figure out, as she said, “who we are.” Thanks for listening.
