Fire Cider
Longard will generally make a batch of fire cider a year, using it in many ways: in salad dressings instead of plain vinegars, by adding a tablespoon of fire cider to hot water to sip on, or as a coug...
A Healthy Retreat
As I approached the Yoga Attic — a beautiful loft yoga studio on two gorgeous acres in Greely — I felt just the teensiest bit of nerves. While I’m pretty comfortable in a yoga class, I’m more likely to fall asleep in shavasana than try any handstands. A full-day retreat suddenly felt a tad daunting. Was I walking into a house full of intimidating Lycra-clad experts?
Some participants were from out of town, there was a mother and daughter, sisters, work friends, folks who were at the Yoga Attic for the first time (like me) and folks who were returning for a third or fourth time. Some came hoping to pick up tips on healthy habits and explore plant-based cuisine, others cited recovery from burnout as their reason for being there and some just thought it would be a fun thing to do on a Saturday.
The group of 18 (all women as it turned out, though men are welcome) was made up of omnivores, vegans, folks who were keen to swap their own nutrition tips and others who had never tried turmeric before. There was indeed a lot of Lycra, but zero judgment.
The schedule for the wellness retreat — a collaboration between Yoga Attic owner Tina Lamontagne and plant-based nutritionist and chef Amy Longard — included chats about nutrition and health, two yoga sessions, a DIY workshop and lunch. The two women had met through a mutual friend a year ago and quickly found their philosophies and skills were complementary. They’ve been doing seasonal wellness retreats ever since.
Lamontagne moved into her Greely home five years ago. Back then, she called the home yoga studio she was creating a “project,” never thinking it would become her full-time gig. Now, the Yoga Attic is home to weekly classes, and Lamontage frequently opens the rest of her home for post-yoga brunches, monthly gatherings for women entrepreneurs, as well as a variety of workshops and themed retreats from meditation to reiki.
Photo 1: Life moves fast and "people always want a hack" or quick fix, Longard, top, says. But there are no magical shortcuts for lives addicted to speed. Improvements come through gradual unhurried cultivation of healthy habits in little things.
Photo 2: Tina Lamontagne, right, leads a yoga session at her Greely home. The focus of the retreats can range from yoga and brunch or reiki to collaborations between entrepreneurs.
Before committing to the Yoga Attic full time, Lamontage spent 10 years working for the University of Ottawa — a job she loved, perhaps too well. She now says she was “definitely a workaholic” in need of a serious injection of work/life balance. Nearly four years ago, she upped her yoga practice to teacher training, and two years ago, she started teaching in the Yoga Attic, while still working full time at the university.
Earlier this year, after many months of teaching, hosting events, and studio renovation, Lamontagne decided to focus all her attention on the Yoga Attic.
At one point, Lamontagne’s previous career had her living out of a suitcase for almost half of the year. It was a hectic schedule, but she would often find comfort in the coziness of traditional B&Bs. This kindled the “concept of warmth” that she’s put in place at the Yoga Attic.
Her home is as warm as her open-hearted personality. The plant-filled kitchen, the airy living room with the colourful poufs on the floor and the barnwood-panelled yoga attic all convey warmth to the world that walks through the door. Add to that the natural setting, the yoga and the communal eating and you have a combination that invites visitors to slow down and enjoy an experience together.
Food is key to the agenda. Lamontagne finds that sharing a culinary experience — picking cabbages for sauerkraut, sharing a post-yoga brunch or watching one of Longard’s cooking demonstrations — “extends the feeling you get at the end of a yoga practice.”
A holistic nutritionist and professional chef, Longard echoes this desire to have people slow down a bit. Life moves fast and “people always want a hack” or a quick fix, she says. But there are no magical shortcuts or miracle quick-fixes for lives addicted to speed. Improvements come through the gradual, unhurried cultivation of healthy habits in little things.
“It’s the most simple things we need to do,” she says, highlighting options such as stress management, regular movement and getting enough sleep — things most people know they should prioritize, but overlook in their search for glitzier solutions.
Propelled by a desire to deal with her own health challenges, Longard, then a civil servant, left her job to train at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City. That stint in kitchens stateside led to her wanting to learn more about the science behind food and health, and so she moved back to Ottawa to study at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, where she graduated as valedictorian. Shortly thereafter, Longard launched Amy Longard Nutrition, and now she shares her expertise through nutrition coaching, cooking lessons, corporate wellness talks and workshops, and at collaborative events such as the retreat at the Yoga Attic.
These days, the wellness industry is valued at more than $4 trillion worldwide. Everything from expensive bath products to boutique gyms with cult-like followings have risen in public consciousness. In this surging sea of new product, all artfully marketed, the idea of wellness or self-care can seem out of reach and overwhelming to many.
Longard says self-care doesn’t need to be bath bombs, essential oils and expensive yoga retreats, though it can be any of those. But the starting point should be “the little things, the small gestures or actions every day that can contribute to self-care.” For Longard, that includes her morning dog walk and the act of cooking for others. It’s a practice rooted in connection, “whether it be to yourself, to the people around you, to nature, to those who grow your food.” Holistic wellness encompasses everything from our circles of peers, daily movement and the food we eat.
Of course, self-care and wellness are also deeply personal, and Longard shares her knowledge without judgement. Though she follows a plant-based diet, she’s not on a mission to convert meat eaters everywhere. For vegetarians and carnivores alike, one of her biggest tips is to build meals around vegetables and gives a nod to the recently updated evidence-based Canadian Food Guide. Instead of deciding you’re going to have a steak with some broccoli on the side, focus on the broccoli and create the rest of the meal around it. She emphasizes that healthy eating should be accessible — and she isn’t recommending expensive supplements or hardto- find powders. She points out that the chickpeas in a lunch dish that served 18 people at the retreat only cost three dollars.
A misconception about plant-based cuisine is that it lacks flavour and protein. This is false, Longard says. “Really, you’re adding new things.” In that spirit, Longard speaks about how she incorporates seaweed, hemp hearts and sauerkraut into her everyday cuisine. As a Haligonian, she has an affinity for seaweed and jokes that it’s as Maritime as her occasional taste for a pint of beer. (In health terms, of course, beer concedes pride of place to sauerkraut, kimchi, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, and miso, all fermented, like beer, but more useful in keeping the gut — which Longard calls “the epicentre of the body” — healthy.)
While we go up to the attic for an energizing flow with Lamontagne, our chef gets lunch prep underway. I’m sweating in downward dog when smells of fragrant spices waft up from the kitchen. Lunch turns out to be colourful and filling. Longard’s focus is on showcasing recipes that people can easily recreate at home and demonstrating that a plant-based diet is indeed filling. There’s a kale salad (featuring Longard’s favourite seaweed) that we top with sauerkraut for a zip of bright acidity, as well as a warming chickpea and sweet potato stew with quinoa pilaf, and beet brownies for dessert. Everybody goes back for seconds.
The DIY part of the day comes after lunch, as we each break out our knives and cutting boards to make fire cider. When I saw “fire cider” on the itinerary, I pictured the group of us standing outside around a fire over which we would be warming a cauldron of mulled cider. A quick search online would have shown the error. Fire cider is a popular tonic, an infusion made with apple cider vinegar, which can be purchased in some specialty shops and online but is cheaper and more fun to make on your own. So no outdoor fire, but an efficient assembly line of women chopping the different ingredients — nubs of turmeric and ginger at one end of the table, and sharp horseradish (a real revelation) at the other. There were some tears shed at the onion station.
As we chopped, Longard offered tips to those who asked, but she wasn’t going around the room critiquing knife skills. Though her professional chef training has equipped her with technical tips to spare, she’s a firm believer that one doesn’t need to be a chef to cook well. She never wants to scare anyone away from the kitchen. The skills will come, she says. “Like anything, it’s about practice and repetition.”
Along with her chef’s training, Longard’s previous career in public relations comes in handy when she’s helping clients decide how to adopt plant-based diets or healthier lifestyles.
Lamontagne praises Longard’s ability to create links and to help people connect their wellness advice with their everyday lives. Many of her clients are recommended to her by their physicians, and she’s a proponent of demystifying nutrition and the science behind it. At the end of the day, wellness and self-care will vary from person to person, but we all need to feed ourselves, so Longard reckons that having some healthy tips and recipes up our sleeves will never be a passing fad.
Once our jars were all full of our homemade elixir, the day closed with a lovely Yin yoga class led by Lamontagne – deep and slow stretching to contrast the faster flow from the morning. The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the lofty space. The bolster pillows and blankets were as soft as one could want. As for me and shavasana … yeah, I totally fell asleep.
Yoga Attic
1461 Erbmill Lane, Greely, Ont.
yogaattic.ca | 613.292.6044 | @yogaattic
Amy Longard
amylongard.com | 613.878.5086 | @amylongard
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