Sometimes the best kind of food to pair with wine is food for the soul, according to a local yoga teacher known for pairing poses with rosés.
When Jennifer Barajas teaches yoga classes at a winery or vineyard, her students are treated to some complimentary wine after the session ends. But there’s an extra twist when the Orcutt-based instructor hosts similar offerings at bars and breweries.
“I incorporate the drink into the yoga poses, so it’s like a challenge for your balance,” said Barajas, the founder of Get Zen with Jenn.
Students of Barajas’ yoga sessions at Naughty Oak Brewing Co., for example, are periodically encouraged to sip from a pint of beer, which is included with the price of admission, during the class. The beer glass itself becomes an important prop, as Barajas directs her pupils to move the glass around in various ways during different yoga poses.
“Say we’re doing ‘reverse warrior,’ I’ll say try to sneak in a sip,” Barajas said. “Or if we’re in a tree pose, try to see if you can balance a drink on your head, or bring your drink to mouth space instead of heart space.”
Beer spilling is inevitable and expected, but not without consequences, Barajas explained.
“The rule is: The first one to spill has to do a challenging yoga pose,” Barajas said, before listing some examples, such as the dancer pose and the crow pose.
The local yoga instructor clarified that she is not exempt from the spill rule—one she often breaks herself.
“I have spilled mine, a few times actually,” she said with a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll spill on my mat all the time.”
Barajas’ favorite beer to recommend to her yoga students at Naughty Oak is the Staycation, a Belgian blonde. With each vineyard she teaches at, Barajas has a different wine recommendation. She often teaches classes at Cottonwood Winery and Riverbench Winery in Santa Maria, as well as Zaca Mesa Winery in Los Olivos.
“At Cottonwood, I like the pinot noir. I believe it’s the 2002,” Barajas said. “They pour like super old, tasty, jammy red wines that I just absolutely love.”
Her favorite wine at Riverbench is the winery’s rosé, which she described as “nice and crisp,” while viognier is her go-to at Zaca Mesa.
Nearly every weekend, Barajas can be found leading one of her yoga classes at at least one of the three wineries or Naughty Oak—or Deasee’s Boutique, another Orcutt venue she often teaches at.
Orcutt is also the home of a new, separate business venture Barajas embarked on this summer. Visitors of the Old Town Orcutt Farmers Market, held on the third Wednesday of each month, can cruise over to Barajas’ table, where she dishes out a unique assortment of microgreens.
Barajas grows microgreens at her home in Orcutt and is always happy to explain the concept to first-timers at the farmers market. On a first glance, it’s easy to mislabel the product as a tray of grass, or some kind of Chia Pet, she said.
“Microgreens are tiny little babies. Because they’re not grown to mature vegetable size, all of their nutrients are jam-packed into these little sprout-looking plants. So you only need to eat very small amounts to get the same nutrition as, let’s say, a whole head of broccoli or a whole bunch of beets,” Barajas said. “They’re just super good for you.”
Barajas grows kale, broccoli, beet, radish, sunflower, and other microgreen types, and sells her varieties for about $5 an ounce.
“Those little guys pack some taste,” Barajas said. “You could put them in salads, wraps; sprinkle them on tacos, pizza, burgers; throw them in your smoothies. They’re just little sprinkles of nutrition.”
Sprinkle some comments into Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood’s inbox at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 1-8, 2022.
