Rachel Neat

Rachel has always had a natural love of cooking and nourishing people with food, and has cooked for different community events throughout her life.  She started cooking for retreats in 2018 as a self-taught chef and has since cooked for a variety of different retreats in centres across Britain.  She later decided to hone her skills and trained as a ‘Natural Chef’ with the College of Naturopathic Medicine, where she gained deeper knowledge about the therapeutic potential of whole foods, and how to cater for a wide range of different dietary needs.  She has also undertaken courses with the Holistic Kitchen Academy, which have deepened her inspiration to cook high quality sensual food with heart and conscious intention.

She is inspired by the vibrant living creativity of cooking and the endless possibilities to learn through food, about other people and cultures, and about ourselves as a part of nature.  Wanting to understand more about how to live sustainably, for a few years she worked as a vegetable grower on organic farms.  She brings this hands-on insight of seasonal foods and love of fresh produce into her cooking, and chooses to be inspired by the seasons and the locality of where she is cooking.

She loves to support, nourish and bring joy to individuals and groups during retreats through creating food that is both nutritious and pleasurable for all the senses.  Having attended many different retreats herself, she understands how important food and mealtimes can be to people’s experience.  She spent several years attending retreats at a Zen monastery, often working alongside others in the kitchen, and still draws inspiration from her time there, enjoying bringing presence and care to all aspects of the cooking process.  Participants on retreats have often commented that they can feel the love in the food she creates.