About
Dhandelione
About
Dhandelione
Welcome!
Beyond the Plate
Welcome
Beyond the Plate
Dhandelione grew from my lifelong relationship with food, first through the kitchen, then through a deeper curiosity about what food reveals about us.
As a chef, I learned how ingredients behave, how flavor is built, and how food brings people together. Later, my studies in Ayurveda, digestion, nutrition, health coaching, and habit evolution led me to look beyond what was happening on the plate.
I became interested in the patterns underneath it.
How do we choose what we eat? What happens when life gets busy? What does our kitchen reveal about the way we care for ourselves? How do our histories, cultures, environments, habits, and daily rhythms influence the way we nourish ourselves?
Those questions became the foundation of Dhandelione.
Today, Dhandelione brings together food, culinary education, Ayurveda, digestion, habits, rhythm, and self-awareness through coaching, teaching, experiences, and the kitchen.
The work is ultimately about learning to pay attention, making the invisible visible, and creating greater choice in how we nourish ourselves and how we live.
The Work I Am Here to Do
Dhandelione grew from my lifelong relationship with food, first through the kitchen, then through a deeper curiosity about what food reveals about us.
As a chef, I learned how ingredients behave, how flavor is built, and how food brings people together. Later, my studies in Ayurveda, digestion, nutrition, health coaching, and habit evolution led me to look beyond what was happening on the plate.
I became interested in the patterns underneath it.
How do we choose what we eat? What happens when life gets busy? What does our kitchen reveal about the way we care for ourselves? How do our histories, cultures, environments, habits, and daily rhythms influence the way we nourish ourselves?
Those questions became the foundation of Dhandelione.
Today, Dhandelione brings together food, culinary education, Ayurveda, digestion, habits, rhythm, and self-awareness through coaching, teaching, experiences, and the kitchen.
The work is ultimately about learning to pay attention, making the invisible visible, and creating greater choice in how we nourish ourselves and how we live.
The Work I Am Here to Do
Darlene is a certified yoga health coach and herbalist. She also holds a degree from the Culinary School of the Arts of Le Cordon Bleu and Johnson Wales University.
Her undeniable love of cooking, working with herbs and spices, functional food, and all things healthy has crafted her career today. Her platform focuses on integrating cultural foods, building like-minded communities, and using food as medicine through integrating Ayurveda with modern-day lifestyles.
Darlene is a firm believer in the power of Ayurveda, an ancient holistic health system born in India that teaches food as medicine. Her driving force for sharing Ayurveda through her cooking skills stems from the most profound belief that the human body has the natural ability to heal and thrive without most pharmaceuticals given the proper nourishment and the right environment.
Darlene’s favorite activities are cooking, gardening, tennis, yoga, and learning about Ayurveda. She enjoys farmer’s markets, reading, spending time with close family and friends, and living a life of balance. Darlene’s passion lies in living in harmony, the magical weaving of the mystical and the root of all life on Earth.
I’ve spent most of my life in and around the kitchen.
Food has been part of my story for as long as I can remember. Even as a little girl, I was in the kitchen learning from my grandmother.
I trained as a chef because I loved the craft of cooking, the ingredients, the transformation, the creativity, and the way a table can bring people together. I went on to work professionally in kitchens, including six years at Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami Beach, where I learned what it means to work with discipline, instinct, consistency, and respect for the food.
But over time, my curiosity moved beyond how food is prepared to what happens after we eat it.
I wanted to understand digestion. I wanted to understand why the same food could make one person feel wonderful and another feel terrible. I became interested in the body, behavior, habits, and the relationship between how we nourish ourselves and how we live.
That curiosity eventually led me to health coaching, yoga, Ayurveda, and advanced study in Ayurvedic digestion and nutrition. Each discipline gave me another lens, but none of them replaced the chef in me. They expanded her.
Today, I bring those worlds together.
I’m a chef, an Integrative Culinary Health Coach, an Ayurvedic Digestion & Nutrition Specialist, and a Certified Yoga Health Coach. But more than anything, I am someone who has spent years studying what happens when knowledge leaves the page and meets a real human life.
Because knowing what to do and actually living it are two very different things.
That space between the two is where much of my work lives.
I’ve spent most of my life in and around the kitchen.
I’ve spent most of my life in and around the kitchen.
Food has been part of my story for as long as I can remember. Even as a little girl, I was in the kitchen learning from my grandmother.
I trained as a chef because I loved the craft of cooking, the ingredients, the transformation, the creativity, and the way a table can bring people together. I went on to work professionally in kitchens, including six years at Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami Beach, where I learned what it means to work with discipline, instinct, consistency, and respect for the food.
But over time, my curiosity moved beyond how food is prepared to what happens after we eat it.
I wanted to understand digestion. I wanted to understand why the same food could make one person feel wonderful and another feel terrible. I became interested in the body, behavior, habits, and the relationship between how we nourish ourselves and how we live.
That curiosity eventually led me to health coaching, yoga, Ayurveda, and advanced study in Ayurvedic digestion and nutrition. Each discipline gave me another lens, but none of them replaced the chef in me. They expanded her.
Today, I bring those worlds together.
I’m a chef, an Integrative Culinary Health Coach, an Ayurvedic Digestion & Nutrition Specialist, and a Certified Yoga Health Coach. But more than anything, I am someone who has spent years studying what happens when knowledge leaves the page and meets a real human life.
Because knowing what to do and actually living it are two very different things.
That space between the two is where much of my work lives.
BodyScape
Beyond my work
When I’m not teaching, facilitating, speaking, or coaching, I’m endlessly curious about food and culture. I love discovering how people cook, what they eat, the ingredients they use, and the traditions and stories that find their way to the table.
You’ll often find me experimenting in my kitchen, wandering through a farmers market, tending my garden, reading, practicing yoga, playing tennis, or planning my next adventure. I love beautiful meals, meaningful conversations, and spending time with the people I love.
That curiosity is part of who I am, and inevitably, it finds its way back into my work. I’m always noticing, tasting, learning, asking questions, and finding inspiration in the everyday things happening around me.
Ayurveda is one of the world’s oldest holistic healing systems, originating from India. It works hand-in-hand with Yoga and is considered the lifestyle that Yogis live. Nowadays, both disciplines are widely practiced in ancient India but have a New Age appeal too.
The beauty of Ayurveda lies in its relationship between the earth’s cycles and the five elements of nature, which show us how to properly nourish, heal, and rebalance our bodies by raising our self awareness of how external environmental cues influence our internal environment. Although Ayurveda is based on a Yogic worldview, it may still be used and applied effectively on its own to people of all cultures, modern-day lifestyles and all who seek optimal health, vitality, and rejuvenation.
We are all made up of the five Earth elements: Earth, water, fire, air and ether(space)? Ayurveda shows us how these elements come together to
create three internal forces or “doshas” they are Vata (air+ether), Pitta (fire+water) and Kapha (Earth+water).
Ayurveda describes how everyone has a specific ratio of these doshas which directly impacts our metabolism, digestion, mood, energy and even our personality! Ayurveda refers to this as your constitution or body type.
By learning and understanding what your constitution or body type is, you can determine which foods, exercises and lifestyle is most balancing for you.
Do you know what your Ayurvedic body type is?
Take the free Dosha quiz and find out what your ayurvedic body type is!
BodyScape
The 12 Month Group Course
During your 12-month journey led by me you will experience the beauty and healing power of Ayurveda by establishing better habits with simple daily routines that will help you develop better digestion, deeper sleep, and more energy to last the entire day.
You will learn the importance of living in sync with the cycles of nature, body energetics and how to nourish and heal your body through the integration of the basic food principles of Ayurvedic cooking.
You will be virtually guided by me in your kitchen as we prepare, cook, and share meals together while learning about seasonal and cultural foods that heal.
See what members have to say
Subscribe to receive the latest news and updates
Subscribe to receive the latest news and updates
Join the family
Join the
Stay connected to Dhandelione through the BodyScape Collective, a free community where we explore food, Ayurveda, digestion, rhythm, habits, and the ideas that shape how we nourish ourselves and live.
Join the
family
© Dhandelione 2021. All Rights Reserved
