Mindful Yoga | Ann-Marie Ahye

A blend of Yin & Yang Yoga steeped in a mindful approach is what Ann-Marie offers through her teaching. She warmly infuses her craft with a harmonious blend of energy, which instills a grounded tranquility and ease of being. While respecting form, she feels a strong impulse to cultivate feeling awareness.

Such maturing awareness in time fosters self-understanding, sharpens discernment and renders a quality of effort that stems from a heart-centered intelligence. Ann-Marie’s teacher training in Toronto gave her a foundation in technique. Her more recent training with Sarah Powers has validated her original intent towards a wisdom approach to practice. A quietly passionate Yoga & Meditation teacher, Ann- Marie has been inspired and transformed by over 20 years of Yoga Sadhana. She credits her ability to teach the deeper meaning of yoga to her ongoing self-inquiry and experiential learning.

Ann-Marie lives and teaches Yoga & Meditation in Toronto. She leads Workshops and Retreats in Canada, and the Caribbean. She has created a ‘Mindful Yoga’ DVD and a Guided Relaxation CD, ‘Travelling Inward’. Further, Ann-Marie practices Energy Balancing. Whatever she shares is offered so as to restore harmony to body, mind and heart. Her approach towards each modality as towards life, is a Mindful one. Join Ann-Marie at the Ranch and explore the Power of Presence.

Join Ann-Marie for her sixth annual return to the Ranch and embrace your power.

On the Web: www.energeticpresence.com

Culinary Experiences at La Cocina Que Canta | Visiting Teacher Joey Altman

Joey Altman is a San Francisco based Chef who wears many hats: Television Host, Cookbook Author, Restaurant Consultant, Food & Wine Educator, and Public Speaker.

In 1998 Altman launched Bay Café, a food-magazine television show that provides food and wine enthusiasts with an insider’s look at the Bay Area’s rich and diverse culinary scene. Bay Cafe has been recognized by the prestigious James Beard Foundation with the food-world's equivalent to The Oscar's, The James Beard Award for Best Local Cooking Series in 2000, 2001 and 2006. Since 2005 Chef Joey Altman has been the chef Spokesperson for Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, home of BV, Sterling, Acacia, Chalone among others. In addition to local television, Altman also hosted two series for the Television Food Network, “Appetite for Adventure,” a show where gourmet cooking meets the great outdoors and “Tasting Napa” a culinary travelogue through Northern California’s wine country.

Cooking and show business both came early to Joey Altman. He grew up in a resort town in New York’s Catskill Mountains where his mother worked at Grossinger’s Hotel, one of the top venues on the Borscht Belt entertainment circuit. Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby, Lionel Hampton, and other entertainers were early inspirations, and Altman’s culinary skills were developed at a young age by cooking at family parties and celebrations. By the time he was in high school, Altman was an aspiring magician (“Altman the Magnificent”), was playing guitar in a local rock band, and was working as a short-order cook in a local diner. After graduating from the Hotel and Restaurant Management Program at Sullivan County Community College, Altman left for France to train under some of France’s finest chefs, including Lyon's Bernard Constantin and Jean Brouilly. He left France with a thorough grounding in the principles and techniques of classical French cuisine and an appreciation of the importance of balance and harmony in cooking.

Altman returned to America to work at Harvest restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Bob Kinkead, gaining an appreciation of the exciting developments in American cooking that emphasized the freshest seasonal and regional ingredients in creative and exciting combinations. He later traveled to New Orleans where he learned the principles of Creole and Cajun cooking under Emeril Lagasse at Commander’s Palace. He also continued his travels and culinary adventures in the American South and Southwest, the Caribbean, and Mexico – all sources of his lively and eclectic style of cooking. Upon arriving in the San Francisco Bay Area, Altman worked at Stars and other trend-setting San Francisco restaurants. He also worked for legendary rock concert impresario Bill Graham cooking backstage for people like Sting, Eric Clapton and the Grateful Dead. But it was the Caribbean and African inspired dishes that he created at Miss Pearl’s Jam House, which he opened with SOMA pioneer restaurateur Julie Ring and Jeff Gradinger in 1989 that catapulted Altman to the forefront of the highly competitive Bay Area restaurant scene. The restaurant was wildly popular and caught the attention of food writers nationwide with its bright flavors and exciting and spicy combinations of exotic and colorful foods. In addition to his Bay Café on KRON-TV, Altman appears at many benefits and food-related events in the Bay Area and nationwide. He also plays guitar in the Backburner’s Blues Band, a blues-rock group composed of other prominent Bay Area chefs and food professionals. The group plays at local benefits and can be found jamming occasionally at San Francisco rock clubs.

Joey offers three hands-on culinary experiences, 3.5 hours each, on Tuesday at 11 am and 4 pm and Thursday at 4 pm, during which you will enjoy preparing your own meal along with fellow cooks. Classes take place at La Cocina Que Canta, our new culinary center.

For more information and registration, please click here.

Body Bar Plus | Sherry Catlin

Sherry Catlin is an international fitness consultant who travels nationwide and abroad presenting workshops, master classes and seminars. She is Director of Program Development for Body Bar Systems as well as a Continuing Education Specialist for the American Council on Exercise. She is a five star presenter for IDEA as well as the 2004 IDEA Program Director of the Year and 2007 ECA One Body One World Lifetime Achievement Award. Sherry specializes in strength and conditioning, lifelong functional fitness as well as weight management and sports performance.

The Women Artists of Oaxaca | Lois Wasserspring

In this slide presentation, Lois Wasserspring -- author of "Oaxacan Ceramics, Traditional Folk Art by Oaxacan Women" shows the work the most famous folk artists in Mexico: women potters from Oaxaca. Despite their national and international fame as ceramists, these women still struggle to provide for their families. Professor Wasserspring will focus on the creation of their marvelous pottery, and the way in which being female affects their lives as artisans. Also join her for A Mexican Folk Art Tour of Rancho La Puerta's collection.

Professor Wasserspring became interested in Latin America as an undergraduate when she went to Honduras to teach literacy to adults in a project sponsored by her undergraduate institution, Cornell University. After Cornell, she went to Princeton for graduate study, where she was the first woman admitted there to study political science. She chose Mexico as the subject of her thesis research and spent three years doing research on the subject of attitudes towards authority in Mexico.She has been a visiting professor at El Colegio de Mexico and also a local consultant in social sciences for the Ford Foundation. Her recent research projects have focused on gender issues in Latin America: artisan women in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and the impact of the Cuban Revolution on Cuban women's lives. She travels frequently to both Mexico and Cuba. In 1999, Professor Wasserspring became faculty director of the Wellesley in Costa Rica Internship Program.