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Wild Garlic, Butterbean & Nettle Broth

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe With this glorious, budding shift into Spring, there is an abundance to be found, shooting forth from the ground, most especially in the unkempt places. Here you can find nettles that are calling to be plucked and often by a water’s edge, wild garlic. And this broth is a wonderful tonic for ...
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Sea Buckthorn & Rosemary Tart

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe Embercombe is blessed to house a small parade of Sea Buckthorn trees that each year, over the late summer and autumnal months, we joyfully watch come bursting to life as they fruit; their glorious display of tiny bright yellow and orange berries emblazoning the pathway that sits west of our Stone Circle, ...
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Communion : Beloved Moussaka ~ and it’s vegan!

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe My kids and I have a penchant for moussaka. Maybe we might say, a fixation. Most especially myself and my son. It’s as if cosmic medicine for our tummies, souls and quite possibly, our cellular DNA. I would like to proffer the passion began in the heat of sweet Mediterranean kitchens. But ...
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Feeding your inner maverick

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe Within all movement there is a secret ingredient. In the busy-ness of life and the active active-ness, it’s one that is easily overlooked. Stability is a fundamental dynamic to everything that moves. One foot can’t step forward, without the other balanced on the ground. A child can’t discover its wings, if it’s ...
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A Soup for this Season

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe Celeriac, Shallot & Nigella Seed Soup  As Winter urges us to rest, as the cold asks us to come inward, as night brings us homeward, this is a time, as deep we know, to pause, lean into stillness, digest the fruits of the last year and stoke beloved fires. The advent of ...
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Speaking to the fire – the Journey to fatherhood

Dedicated volunteer and programme lead to the Journey in 2018 shares his experience of welcoming the birth of his daughter on Embercombe's land. by Stephan Pfaff  'Backrow' Journey volunteer lead At the beginning of 2018 I had taken on the role of programme lead at Embercombe. Lucy was 6 months pregnant when we moved to Embercombe to live there. I ...
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Ode to Candlelight  

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe Roasted Squash, Cider & Sage Spelt Risotto   In times of adversity, when trusted road maps are thrown into seeming jeopardy, we  are graced with choice. Sometimes such choice may be difficult to discern however,  when silence falls, if we allow ourselves to lean into the quieter hours and listen, here  it may ...
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A Journey back to belonging

Dedicated volunteer to our Journey programme Tugba Kirhan shares her inner journey to acceptance and belonging. by Tugba Kirhan Yoga instructor and 'backrow' Journey volunteer A few years ago I was recommended a retreat centre in Devon called Embercombe. When I checked out their website I came across a programme called “The Journey” - a mysterious self leadership programme which ...
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A Splendidly, Sumptuous Shepherdess Pie

By Sophia Young - Kitchen Manager at Embercombe Before yoga, tai chi and the inspirations of other wonderful, worldly movement medicines arrived on these isles, our teacher for activity was the dance of the elements and seasons with the land itself as we planted, tended, harvested and rested over the course of each year. The essence of our wellbeing, for ...
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When the people speak

How the Embercombe stone circle powers my climate activism by Dave Hampton Carbon coach and activist It was 6am, chilly, and a simple ceremony for the 2020 Spring Equinox was being held at the centre of the stone circle. Dear friend Fi Barnes held us, and the energies, barefoot; the fire was lit with ease and grace; Fi spoke some ...