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NOURISHING NECTARS WITH DJAMILLA SAMAD
By: Celeste Ezell | February 2, 2023
Nourishing Nectars is a small women-owned business making organic, vegan, low glycemic chocolate truffles enhanced with adaptogens. All truffles are handcrafted here in Marin by Djamilla.
What brought you into the chocolate industry?
Ever since my childhood I've had a sweet tooth. My father cooked exquisite Malaysian food and my mother made French desserts. When our family traveled from our home in Europe back to Malaysia, I watched my grandmother add various herbs from her tropical garden into her food and sweets recipes. In my 20s on an island in the Baltic sea, I began a deeper immersion experimenting with herbs and garden plants. In the kitchen to see what was possible to create. Eventually I lived in a tree house at an organic farm in Ecuador where I studied the cultivation process of cacao. It was a beautiful time, very pure and simple farm life growing, harvesting and roasting the cacao beans. I have since continued to refine the recipe. In the beginning, the items I made were very medicinal and bitter due to the herbs and various Superfoods I added. And I have since made the recipe more palatable.
How are your chocolates different from others?
Personally I'm fascinated with marrying Healthy with Delicious, a task I have taken on to master, or at the very least make it as delicious and nourishing as possible.
We can have treats, and enjoy gourmet flavors without being unhealthy. There are so many brands of chocolates out there that contain harmful ingredients. And even the majority of the organic brands contain cane sugar, which as we know has a high glycemic index.
That's why I only sweeten my truffles with coconut sugar and a tad of stevia, to keep the glycemic index as low as possible and avoid overly refined or artificial sweeteners. Everything I create is organic and many of the adaptogens are Wildcrafted. The chaga, for example, is hand harvested by my sweet mother in law Kathy. And since I share my chocolates with my loved ones I make sure that I utilize the cleanest ingredients possible.
What has been your highlight so far?
Something that really touched my heart was when a classically trained French pastry chef told me that she found my truffles to be just as good as the ones in Paris. Hearing that made me feel like I was on the right path of creating something good.
What exactly is an adaptogen?
An adaptogen is an edible herb, mushroom or berry that adapts to your body’s needs, which makes it into an intelligent food choice. They can help us handle stress more efficiently and give us more stamina.
One of the adaptogens I add into my truffles is Ashwagandha, a root that is popular in the Ayurvedic tradition as a rejuvenative tonic for strength, energy and vitality, which I feel is something that many mothers could benefit from.
Another one of my favorites is Lion's Mane which contains nerve growth factor and is believed to support brain plasticity and brain health, which is something I wished I had access to during my school years.
What else do you offer?
I've catered a few events with cakes of various sizes both vegan and with dairy. When I use dairy products I gravitate towards A2 milk since it's easier for the body to digest. And if I use flour I tend to work with the ancient grains such as spelt, farro, amaranth and quinoa since they haven't been modified.
When I'm not busy creating delicious treats, I offer Somatic Movement Classes for women who want to let go of any emotional blocks to make room for genuine joy. I was trained as a ballerina by the Swedish Royal Ballet School, toured the globe as a professional ballet dancer and later developed my own style of movement when I lived in Paris and Tulum. It's a way of relating to the body that's gentle and intuitive so that we can tap into what's truly going on beneath the surface to live and be more authentic to ourselves and our inner experience.
And I'm delighted to invite you to our Galentines Chocolate Tasting event on February 11 organized by the Southern Marin Mothers Club. There will be a mini Somatic Movement Class intro as well so please dress in comfortable clothing. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Djamilla lives in San Rafael with her family and you can find her @DjamillasCircle on Instagram where she's creating an online and in person platform to support women and mothers with somatic awareness, nourishing nutrition and emotional support. Also this February she's facilitating a Mama Baby Class series as well.
Celeste & Daniel Ezell are parents to three children who have attended, attend or soon will attend their accelerated K-8 Micro-school. They founded Chronos Academy to integrate all subjects to a timeline with creativity, music and making. You can reach Celeste by email at celeste@chronos.academy. Follow Chronos Academy at @chronoscohorts or learn more at chronos.academy