Hello friend!
I am Kamea (she/her)
I am a tutor and coach. Writer, feminist podcaster, and your unpretentious foodie friend.
I once sold tea to Dave Mathews at a farmers’ market and was 100% oblivious as to why people were being weird around my stand.
I hate fennel and almost every winter squash. Roasted with cheese? Still gross, no thank you.
I am the oldest of three sisters all raised by a single mom. Mama and I went to the same university and graduated just two years apart.
I don’t know how to bake sourdough bread—I know it seems off-brand for me.
I have taught Micheal Jackson’s Thriller dance routine to a few hundred people.
I have Raynaud's.
Unless I just pulled it out of the ground, two cloves of garlic are never enough.
I empower eaters to create joyful, intentional relationships to food. I do this by advancing food literacy and offering pathways that invite curiosity and connection to your food source.
Growing up food was always a topic of conversation.
Worry about too much and not enough. Growing up we did all the cooking at home because we couldn’t afford to eat out much. I learned the basics at my Grandmother’s knee while mama worked as a server. Mimi’s signature dessert: Pineapple Delight with layers of marshmallow whipped cream, canned pineapple, and crushed gram crackers. To this day her goulash casserole remains a favorite comfort food in my family.
After Mimi passed my mother started experiencing chronic pain. I was 10 and had just put myself on my first diet as a vegetarian.
Doctors and health professionals always encouraged diet as a means of managing my mother’s health and associated weight fluctuation. So we tried them all. A few regimens helped and others did nothing, but there was another unintended consequence to having so much dieting in the house
I learned to see food for its point values, categorize what I ate as good or bad, and attach my worth to my body size. I developed a set of restrictive eating habits that would follow me into college.
Everything changed when I started working at Rabbit Fields Farm
I don’t blame my mother for my toxic relationship with food. As a millennial, I was raised against a cultural backdrop ripe with traps for hating yourself.
I will admit that smizing has come in handy recently, but otherwise, Top Model taught me nothing but unrealistic body standards. Behind the noise of babysitting were commercials for milkshake diets, super-sized menus, and lingerie-wearing angels.
I was not set up for success. Nor was my mother, my sisters, or you.
When I became employed at Rabbit Fields Farm I had no idea what I had got myself into. I wore makeup every day, weighed myself frequently, and was comically bad at cooking with raw ingredients. Yet there I was in a brand new world surrounded by people who were having entirely different conversations about food than I was used to.
It broke my brain.
I learned how to create a new relationship to food by increasing my food literacy and immersing myself in a completely new paradigm.
When we look at food, and our food choices as a form of literacy, we acknowledge that there are different sets of skills (and knowledge) that impact how you eat.
Areas of food literacy include:
How food is handled by your body
Nutrition and pleasure
Food triggers and inflammation,
Understanding where food comes from
Where food is grown and how it impacts the environment
A cuisine’s heritage
How to prepare food you like
Culinary skills as well as your personal taste index
Your personal food story
Separation from, or attachment to, ancestral and familial foods
How individuals give or receive love through food
Past, present, and future foodscape
Gender socialization
How can I help?
You don’t have to become fluent in food systems to improve your relationship to food. I can help you stand in your kitchen with confidence. Let me show you how to build your relationship with food on purpose.
My signature seasonal tutoring service will help you stop eating just to survive, and learn new habits.
Click for more information.
Would you like me to teach or speak at your upcoming event?
Click to start a conversation with me.
Interested in meal planning but hate diet culture? I invite you to check out my empowered meal planning course.
Click for more information.
Education
Bachelor of Arts
Interdisciplinary Studies:
Food Systems & [women in] Agriculture
Western Washington University