A special breakfast from a special retreat in Piedmonte
I took a quick scan of my phone yesterday, swinging in the hammock while Leo napped, the waves crashing on the ocean beneath me, birds swirling as the sun started to set. Images of bouganvillea blooms, plates of tacos, so many pictures of tiny toes in the sand, street vendors from Mexico City, videos of my feet eating roasted chestnuts in front of the Duomo in Milan, a market haul of fruits and vegetables from an vendor in a tiny Italian hill town, and so so many pictures of things I’ve eaten in the wild international tour that has been my November. It’s going to take me a few weeks to sort through the scenes, the memories, the flavors. But a few things are standing out already and this Tea-Infused Rice Porridge we enjoyed for breakfast at our Soma retreat in Piedmonte is the first thing I want to make when I get home.
The Soma.by.Hedvig retreat that I co-facilitated with a powerhouse crew of compassionate and beautiful women earlier this month is an experience that I know won’t soon leave the fabric of my being. This container – designed for each participant to reset through the mediums of yoga, sound healing, ceremony, journaling, Ayurvedic cuisine and processing space – was so special, so rich, so potent. Not only for the participants, but for us as a practitioner team as well.
The underlying layer of all of this good, deep work – the letting go, the opening up, the diving in – was the food. I was and continue to be SO proud to share the wisdom of Ayurveda in this practical way, and to create a canvas of nourishment suitable to create space, love and light within us. Creating an Ayurvedic menu in Italy was one of the most exciting cooking projects I’ve ever tackled; most often, Ayurvedic food is considered to be “Indian food,” and this makes sense given the origins of this framework. But Ayurveda is everywhere, and everything, and the principles that make up this philosophy are so easily translated to Italian culture where local, seasonal produce is championed in each corner of the country, and the bounty is so tremendously beautiful, flavorful and bold. I loved creating meals that reflected Ayurveda’s grounding, balancing principles, while featuring ingredients from the abundant region of Piedmonte – a bounty that included chestnuts, pomegranates, persimmon, quince, pumpkin, kale, sunchoke, lemon, mandarin and more…all on the same plates, the same snapshop of the season.
There are so many plates that I can still taste and smell in my mind and heart, but this porridge was one of our favorites from the week – an unexpected clash of ingredients that rendered the most grounding, delicate, special and sweet breakfast any of us had enjoyed in a long time.
When I swung through Milan on the front end of the trip, I stopped at Peck – one of the oldest food halls and specialty markets in Italy and maybe the world. It was all together too easy to fill my basket with fruits, jars of honey and almond cream, tiny tins of saffron, olive oil, special goat cheeses and more. But one of the most special things I found were handmade herbal tea blends made with flowers and fruits, and I selected several to take with me to the retreat to infuse our meals with their special medicines.
If you aren’t yet drinking flowers and fruits, there are several reasons to start doing so.
Flower-heavy blends — such as chamomile, calendula, lavender, rose, and jasmine hit the parasympathetic switch. They help dial down cortisol spikes, soothe frazzled Vata energy, and support deep, slow breathing. This is why your whole body goes “ohhhh yes” when you sip.
Herbs like tulsi, hibiscus, rooibos, lemon balm, and calendula are stacked with polyphenols. These compounds help cool systemic inflammation — a huge win for athletes, stressed humans, and anyone trying to keep their joints happy and mood steady.
Fruit-forward blends (such as berry, citrus peel, apple, rosehip) are loaded with vitamin C, quercetin, and flavonoids. And, they support:
Skin elasticity + collagen
Immune resilience
Faster recovery from training or travel
Metabolic balance
And so while beautiful, infusions made from these beautiful teas are like the mechanics for your system. Keeping things in tip top shape, in the most beautiful kind of way. Plus their smells, flavors and colors are pure divinity!
If rice isn’t the first thing you think of when you think of breakfast, join the club. Rice is abundant, easy to cook, incredibly digestible and easy to make special with so many other elements already in your kitchen. When I was in Piedmonte, I used a special short-grain rose rice that cooked into a beautiful pinkish-purple hue when acid (lemon juice) was added to the cooked rice. But the real winner of this creamy, sweet and comforting porridge was the coconut milk-tea blend the rice cooks in. I used a blend that featured berries, acai, hibiscus, papaya and rose, but you could use any tea you have on hand here (see below for notes.) The tea is going to infuse a lot of the flavor here, so be thoughtful about what you choose!
Coconut milk is a must, and I love this dish served with simple poached fruits on top. To poach fruits, simply peel them, cover them with about an inch of water, add a cinnamon stick and a cardamom pod or two, then bring them to a boil and simmer until the flesh of the fruit is soft enough that the tip of a knife easily pokes through.
And then, I strongly recommend making this one your own. Enjoy the bounty of wherever you are, take a moment to sniff and savor the scents of your breakfast, let the tea, sweet coconut milk and creamy rice give you a big hug from the inside out. If you were at Soma with us, you know that hugs accompanied your breakfast, and the feeling followed you through the day.
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