Living life at a lower speed - Meet Chef Rosie

One of the main topics of the Slow Food & Yoga Festival is sustainability. It’s our wish to spread the word about a greener planet, and how we can recycle more, and eventually become a plastic-free island. Our journey is towards a Zero Waste Gili Air, and we are very thankful, that we are not on this journey alone. One of the Eco Warriors, who’s living on Gili Air, and who’s also a partner of Slow Food & Yoga Festival, is Rosie. She is the founder of Nad Brahma Gili Air, a lovely Indian vegan and vegetarian restaurant located on the main street.

”I came to Gili Air because I wanted to open a healthy restaurant. Being vegan myself, it was natural to make a health-oriented restaurant. I decided to leave Europe and go to Asia, to look for a new home because I missed the Asian culture. I wanted to live in an area where generally life is at a lower speed than Europe. My business embodies a holistic approach, and that is what I’m trying to build up. We wish to take care of the environment, of each other, and recycle our trash as far as possible.“

We truly love the perspective that Rosie has on the environment, and we are proud to see small businesses like Nad Brahma taking huge steps in the right direction. At Nad Brahma, there is no use of plastic, and Chef Rosie makes sure to recycle whatever she can:

”At Nad Brahma, we try to reduce plastic use at all, and we try to reuse and recycle as much as possible! We feed our scraps to the local cows and thereby we support the local community. We are also a refill station for water, we sell refill bottles, and we offer recycling and upcycling workshops.”

Mobirise
Nad Brahma - Gili Air

To be able to control your mind, you need to slow down

Rosie came to Indonesia, because we missed the Asian culture, and because she wanted to escape from the busy life in Europe. She has incorporated the lifestyle of Ayurveda in her way of living, which is also present in her menu at Nad Brahma. We asked Rosie to tell us a bit more about her journey through life:

”I came to Indonesia because I wanted to live a slow lifestyle, where things are not as perfect and as fast as in Europe. I believe by slowing down and by meditation, we can achieve to live on a higher plane. To be able to control your mind, you need to slow down. I try to incorporate Ayurveda, meditation and meditative music in my life. Hopefully, soon I get more time and energy to restart my spiritual practice. I used to practice Ashtanga Yoga, and I’m a musician of Indian meditative music. I used to play every day for many hours. Building up a business took all my time and energy.”

”In 2015 I finally came back to Asia after living in Switzerland for 7 years. After looking at a few options to open a healthy and vegan restaurant, I decided to open my own business in Bali. There, I met a lot of beautiful people and friends – among them some musicians from Gili Trawangan. They called me to come and open a business in the Gilis. At the end of 2017, I arrived on the beautiful islands. The best place ever I was able to find is where I am today in Gili Air.”

“I am very happy to live here. I think it’s the most beautiful of the three islands because it has a bit of both. It’s quiet – but if you want to go out and do some things – then there are options all the time. But it’s not a big party island like Gili Trawangan.”

Mobirise

Chef Rosie - Owner & Founder of Nad Brahma


An Ayurveda Lifestyle

Rosie is originally from Switzerland, but she didn’t make her way straight to Indonesia from there. First, Rosie had a long and spiritual life in India, where she studied for many years. Here, Rosie became familiar with her Guru and the practice of classical music on a Sarangi instrument. Rosie also changed her lifestyle by focusing on Ayurveda, which is a lifestyle and eating habits, that she will share her knowledge about at Slow Food & Yoga Festival.

”I went to India upon a call from the Gods, I would say. When I was living in Switzerland, in my early 20’s, I came across the most fascinating instrument I can imagine. The person playing that instrument made me go to India to meet our Guru. I studied for the next many years. I learned Indian classical music on a bow instrument called sarangi. It’s something between a violin and a cello, but it has a lot of echo sound. It just sounds like it’s coming from outer space.”

”Can you imagine - living, studying, and practicing classical music for many hours every day – it completely changed my lifestyle! Soon my eating habits turned into an Ayurveda lifestyle and into living the Indian way of life. Most Indian people have a daily routine of practices they perform – done in the name of God.”

Other than doing a talk about Ayurveda, Chef Rosie will also share her knowledge about Upcycling. Upcycling is a way of creating new things out of discarded materials. Rosie will be hosting an Upcycling Workshop and a Glass Upcycling Workshop to show visitors of Slow Food & Yoga Festival how to reuse materials and make it useful.

“This workshop is about recycling or upcycling from discarded materials like tins, plastic bottles, tetra packs, and scraps you can find on the beach. Then we use these scraps and other materials to creatively combine - making something new and useful such as purses, lamps, candle holders, and mobiles. Your only limitation is your imagination. This is the art of upcycling.”

Mobirise

Gili Air Fest 2019 all rights reserved

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