50 | APRIL 29 • 2021 

connection to,” Ohana says. 
“That really helps to elicit 
a certain emotion from the 
client and gives me a certain 
point of how to put together 
the session.” 
From there, Ohana devel-
ops a suggested menu, pro-
vides the recipes and creates 
a shopping list. Then, she 
cooks with her clients.
Before the pandem-
ic, cooking sessions were 
in-person. Now, she’s pivoted 
to virtual sessions held over 
Zoom that typically run an 
hour long. “In every ses-
sion, we always start with 
an opening dialogue about 
expectations and an intro-
duction to what this is all 
about,” she explains of her 
program.

FOOD AND GOALS
Then comes the cooking, 
which is often followed by an 
eating element. “People put 
together something beau-
tiful and delicious and that 
gives them a chance to taste 
it for themselves and really 
celebrate what they’ve done,” 
Ohana says. She closes the 
session with a summary 
discussion that wraps every-
thing together, from goals to 
the food that’s been created.
With food having such 
a strong connection to 

memories, Ohana says the 
power of cooking can have a 
tremendous impact on men-
tal health and wellness. “I 
think specifically for Jewish 
people, we tend to be more 
aware of the power that 
food has in our world,” she 
explains. “Even with some-
thing like this, people can 
be amazed by food and they 
underestimate the power 
that it holds.”
She always tells her clients 
that the smell is the strongest 
of the senses, giving people 
an opportunity to reminisce 
and recall things from the 
past. From sourdoughs 
to challah, to dishes that 
require chopping, mixing 
and stirring (Ohana’s favor-
ite), she says there is no limit 
to what people can make.
“I think as long as some-
body has an openness to 
something a little bit dif-
ferent and out of the box, 
and has an interest in being 
creative, this could poten-
tially be for them” she says 
of Culinary Art Therapy. 
“When you give somebody 
a task that makes them feel 
more at ease, it’s much easier 
for them to open up and 
put themselves in a place to 
make connections.” 

Learn more at culinaryarttherapy.com.

“PEOPLE PUT 
TOGETHER 
SOMETHING 
BEAUTIFUL 
AND 
DELICIOUS.”

— JULIE OHANA

continued from page 48

COURTESY OF JULIE OHANA

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