Interview - Dyan Garris, author of Voice of the Angels Cookbook - Talk to Your Food! - Intuitive Cooking

Today's 5 Q&A is with Dyan Garris, author of Voice of the Angels Cookbook - Talk to Your Food! - Intuitive Cooking.






1.) Who are you?
For many years Dyan Garris has been counseling clients in order to help them positively move forward in their lives. She is clairvoyant, clairsentient, and clairaudient. In addition, Dyan is also what is known as a voice recognition psychic and trance channel. This means that she can help her clients via phone, which is how she conducted her readings throughout her career. Dyan became aware of her clairvoyance, and other gifts, at a very young age. She spent years learning how to use these gifts to help others.

In 2005 she created a CD series of music and meditation for self-healing, relaxation, chakra balancing, and vibrational attunement of mind, body, and spirit. While sitting at the piano, she heard specific songs and titles coming from her psychic connections. Writing them down as fast as she could, the result was “A Healing Journey – The Voice of the Angels” CD. This is the first in the series. There are six CDs in the series (all available separately) plus two radio version music-only compilations and two meditation-only compilations. The radio version music compilation “Spiritus Sanctus” Volume 2 was a 2006 NAR Lifestyle Award qualifier in two categories and is still charting well over a year and a half later.

Her new CD of instrumental relaxation music sprinkled lightly with the angelic vocals of award winning recording artist Amber Norgaard titled “Release” was released in late September 2007. Dyan’s music can be heard nationally and internationally on numerous radio stations and was recently in the top ten on Music Choice’s “Soundscapes” cable TV channel.

Dyan is the author, developer, and artist of “Voice of the Angels-A Healing Journey Spiritual Cards.” These are a thirty card deck of angel cards based upon scenes from “A Healing Journey Guided Fantasy,” which is the guided meditation found on the last track of her first CD. Each card has its own channeled message in verse from the Angels and free card readings are available on her website.

Dyan writes a “Daily Channeled Message” which posts on her website. Recently, she authored “The Book of Daily Channeled Messages,” which is a compilation of uplifting, inspirational angelic messages to be used for daily guidance.

Her new book “Voice of the Angels Cookbook-Talk To Your Food!-Intuitive Cooking” is available at the author’s website and Amazon.com. This is an adventure in opening the creative centers and communicating with your food so it can transform from raw ingredients into what truly nourishes you on every level. The book includes twelve food-related channeled messages such as “Ode to Popcorn” and “The Measure of Success” plus several “Intuitively Speaking” paragraphs which explain how to prepare the recipe using one’s own unique creativity. For more information visit www.voiceoftheangels.com.

2.) What prompted you to write a cookbook?
I believe we should take everything we have and blend it into our own special recipe of life. I don’t believe in labels or limiting myself to one particular category in life. That would be like living just one chapter in your whole book over and over. The first thing anyone ever asks upon meeting is, “What do you do?” And then from there a conclusion is drawn based upon what the inquiring person’s frame of reference is. I want to read, live, and experience my whole book without limitations and with no regrets. It’s a journey. I wrote the cookbook for several reasons, but a main reason is because it goes along with my body of work which is transformation of energy. My work is about taking what you have – raw ingredients — and transforming them into the best they can be. My work is about balance of mind, body, and spirit. I teach people how to do that. My music and meditations are about that, and the cookbook is simply an adjunct to that. I love to cook. I love to have people over for dinner. My heritage is Greek. My family had restaurants. It’s where I grew up. My grandmother lived with us and did most of the cooking. I learned to cook from her and it was fascinating to watch her. She didn’t measure anything. I know she must have been talking to her food. One of the goals for the cookbook was to keep things simple, yet elegant. We’re all busy. I put a lot of recipes in the book that are easy. I put some in there that are more complicated. The main idea is to make what your physical body says it wants and do it in a way that you are opening up creatively and entirely present in the “now.” It’s a simple way to achieve balance and harmony on more than just one level.

3.) What’s your favorite food to eat?
I don’t think I eat like most people eat. I need my body to perform in a way that most people don’t. So there is a conscious effort on a daily basis to take care of the physical body. By the nature of my work, I need to be able to hold consistently a high degree of very focused energy for a long period of time. Most people don’t need to do that. So I never eat anything with chemicals or unidentifiable ingredients. I make everything from scratch. I don’t use convenience products. I don’t eat “fast foods.” I believe that everything our bodies need for optimum health was put here on the planet. If it isn’t in its whole and natural state, I don’t eat it. I love a good mystery, just not with my food. So many things get diluted and distorted in the name of “convenience.” Right now I’m enjoying plain yogurt and a lot of fish and salad. If you listen and tune in, the body will tell you what it wants and needs. Here is what I had the other day and also an example of cooking intuitively:

Open Face Tuna Melt

1 pound fresh raw Ahi Tuna (Sushi grade)
1 T olive oil
1 T onion powder
Dash or two of garlic salt
Seafood spice blend
¼ cup Monterey Jack cheese
¼ cup sharp cheddar cheese
2 to 4 slices rye (or other) bread

In food processor pulse tuna with olive oil and spices. Stir in cheeses. Shape into patties. In skillet fry in olive oil until tuna is cooked rare, medium, or well done. (To your taste). Place on toasted rye bread and pour cheese sauce over top. (Note: The recipe for cheese sauce is in the book).

Now, here is the intuitive cooking part: I’m on vacation and I don’t have a food processor here. So I chopped the tuna up and put it in a bowl. I added some olive oil – a little more than the recipe calls for - about 2 T, and some seafood spice and a little salt. I didn’t want any onion that day; so I omitted that. However, I was feeling a taste for a nice juicy tomato, so I chopped up a little bit of that and stirred it in. Intuitively I felt I needed some additional “zing.” So I added in a little hot spice. I wasn’t feeling the love for garlic that day; so I left that out. Since I only had American cheese here, I chopped up one slice and threw that into the mix. Because this was looking a little soupy, I tossed in a bit of Parmesan cheese. I wasn’t in the mood for the bread or cheese sauce; so I left that part out too. When the tuna was cooked to my liking, I ate it with my salad. The whole thing took less than ten minutes. It was delicious! And here is something on another level to contemplate while you’re cooking:
Salt Water (Channeled message from the book)
“What is at the root of our perceptions of limitation? Fear. Let go of fear and limitation dissolves and disappears like salt in water. You can then choose to see the transformation as a small pot of salty water on the stove or as an ocean you can swim in, fish in, or sail a boat upon.” © 2007 Dyan Garris - Daily Channeled Message.

4.)What’s your favorite meal to cook?

My favorite thing to cook is Cinnamon Chicken. It smells fabulous and tastes even better. It’s a delightful marriage of tomatoes, garlic, onion, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice and there is a secret thing to do with the butter at the end that makes the whole dish sizzle! It’s a fast and easy recipe and incorporates a hard, salty Greek cheese called Mizitrah, which is available at most grocery stores now. I make this when I want the whole house to smell warm, spicy, comforting, and completely inviting.

5.)What’s next?
I’m in the process of writing a book about money and manifesting. So many people have challenges in this area. Money is very basic and very “root chakra” as is food. And a lot of people don’t know how to manifest. So this next book is a recipe for “making” money. Money is simply energy and we work with that in the same way as we do with anything that resides in the root chakra. We transform the lower into the higher. We don’t “make” money. We open pathways to creating a flow of abundance in our lives. I’ll also be doing a lot of promotion for the CDs and I have plans to host some live meditation events. I’ll be doing another CD in the Spring. But, I’ll always be talking to my food and may even open a restaurant. Come over for dinner sometime.

Thanks so much, Dyan!