Kripalu

Anticipation:

A morning drive through snow-tipped Berkshires.

"It looks like Narnia!"

Friends bundled in the cold, ready for good coffee and the sunrise.

We were headed to the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health for a day of ... relaxing? Recovering? Spending time together?

Eating?

My friends may have gone to deepen their yoga practice, but I apparently needed to deepen my passion for food. Within minutes of arriving on the campus, I developed a personal relationship with my steel cut oatmeal. Really, you would have, too. It was creamy and toothsome and hearty and wholesome and divine. Who knew oatmeal could be like that?

The oatmeal was forgotten by lunch, however, when I met chickpeas in tomato cream sauce, lemony lentil dal, and cilantro-mint chutney. I really thought we had a future together until dinner rolled around. Somewhere between the opening note of roasted olives and garlic and the concluding bite of buckwheat banana bread (oh yes, the recipe is here), I decided my meal and I were going to get married.

Sadly, it turns out it isn't legal to marry your food. So I did the next best thing; I trotted down to the gift shop and purchased Kripalu Seasonal Menus: Fall and Winter by Deb Morgan.

Yes, I went on a yoga retreat for the food.

Okay, I may have done one or two other things.

There was a morning soak in a whirlpool so steamy that drops gently rained down from the ceiling.

Also, there was a yoga class on being grounded. Since I am the kind of person who falls over in Mountain Pose (yes, that's the one where you just stand there) I really appreciated the lessons.

Two dear friends talked me into Kripalu YogaDance, held during prime lunchtime hours. Hmm, a great opportunity to embarrass myself in front of three dozen Lululemon-clad strangers? Why not? By the time we left an hour later, shaky and ravenous, even my belly button was smiling.

We walked in the woods. We did more yoga. We curled up in the sunroom with tea and good things to read. We relaxed, we recovered, we rejuvenated, and we laughed. An amazing day.

Photographs by Sasha Eisele and Danielle Hall, with thanks to Sasha's iPhone.