Sprouted buckwheat salad with sweet potato, silverbeet and cashew tahini recipe

As the yellow water taxi speeds off, back toward to Circular Quay, I turn, facing the entrance to Cockatoo Island, and ponder what I've got myself into. A three day yoga festival. I think I'm deep in enemy territory.

Rather than give each other silver tea pots to mark 25 years of marriage, we booked into something called the Wanderlust festival. I missed the yoga bit, thinking it was music, food and wine. Now, noting everyone, including the security guards has a yoga mat strapped to their backs, I'm feeling like an outlaw from a Western, in a dangerous town without my six-shooter.

Once it dawned on me that the festival was all about yoga, I thought, "Great I'll be stuck on an island with hundreds of old vegos." It couldn't be further from the truth, just about everyone is young, super fit, and (note to the guys) mostly female.

Being one of the oldest, if I sat down for any length of time, these young people would gather around, like the Von Trapp children, waiting for words of wisdom.

Cockatoo Island is an amazing venue. It's an old shipyard and dockland that dates back to the 1840s. There are lots of dry docks, rusty cranes and huge buildings around the perimeter and then the island juts up to spectacular sandstone cliffs. It's all very industrial and such a counterpoint to the yoga festival itself.

My first class is with Simon Borg-Olivier who is a small chap of indeterminate age. He is sitting in full lotus talking about how your food choice can be influenced by your breathing. Disconcertingly, every now and then he places his hands on the ground in front and lifts his whole body up above his head, still in lotus.

The theory here is that we eat acidic foods, like meats and others high in protein or starch, because it makes us alert, sparks our fight or flight response. Alkaline foods, all the healthy stuff, doesn't do this. However acidic foods leave residues in our gut that can lead to all sorts of problems. The solution is to breathe less. What? Yes, if you breathe less, you retain more carbon dioxide in your system which exists as carbonic acid in your bloodstream so will have the same acidifying effect on your brain and body: alert, ready to react, feeling good.

Enlightened, I had a hibiscus tea and thought this makes sense, I'm ready for yoga now. Maybe not quite ready for the bliss paddle board yoga session or the inversion class, they look unnecessarily difficult.

Superflow surf-inspired yoga sounds like fun. Eoin Finn is a Canadian-born Californian and is the image of a surfer: blond, tanned and fit. Carefree like he has found purpose in early middle-life. We all crowd into a room, remove most of the clothing, the band fires up and we get into the warm up, the breathing, the chanting and then all these improbable moves like we are in the waves and trying to make the perfect warrior pose. For an hour and a half we do this and you know what? It's so good. I'm feeling clumsy like was that a cobra or up-facing dog, doesn't matter just listen to the music and Eoin's positive vibe.

We race straight from this to another session with the weirdly-flexible Simon in the Mothership, a half tumble down warehouse, about "Yogi secrets of strength, flexibility and fitness".

This is a much quieter affair, just some background music, gongs and our yogi standing on a little stage going through his moves. I'm slightly obsessed with his flexibility. He shows that with the right breathing you can put your foot wherever you want or move from downward dog to handstand.

Maybe not yet but I'm feeling like I've found the next challenge for my life stage.

You spend your first ten years learning stuff you need. Many of the teachers impressed on us that this is when you were at your peak: carefree, flexible, tummy out, everything was a natural response. Years later, half a lifetime, it's time to get that feeling back and I suspect yoga is the way to do this.

There is so much going on here, a feeling of calmness washed over me, the last day was spent in various poses from very peaceful sunrise sudhana with Amy Landry to a crazily energetic martial-arts inspired "Enter the Dragon" session with Cameron Shayne. And then a final and peaceful "Prana and pranayama" session in the Quiet Place with Pradeep Teotia. An Indian, from California, full of positive energy and calmness.

Cockatoo Island is a tourist destination so among all the practicing yogis, of which I'm feeling part of now, were tourists, with their big shorts, slouched poses, socks and sneakers, cameras and baseball caps watching us sit quietly and I found comfort that I was in the right space and place.

The food was obviously healthy with lots of fermented, activated and sprouted components. Egg of the Universe was the main caterer and they had roasted vegetable salads with buckwheat and millet. While they were OK, a little dry, I thought I could work on them a bit and put together a dish that can, in some way, sum up my epiphany of sorts at Wanderlust 2015.

Sprouted buckwheat salad with sweet potato, silver beet and a cashew tahini sauce

1 cup organic raw buckwheat

1 cup raw cashews, plus another handful

1 clove garlic

1 large lemon, zest and juice

2 tbsp chia seeds

½ cup sheep's milk yoghurt

3 smallish sweet potatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 bunch silver beet

2 tbsp butter

¼ cup white wine

4 large eggs

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

1 tsp honey

salt and pepper

Heat your oven to 200C. Soak the buckwheat in water for 20 minutes and drain. Use a hand blender to puree the cup of cashews to a paste, add a little water to help here then the garlic, lemon zest and juice. This will be quite thick, stir the chia seeds into the yoghurt and mix with the cashew puree.

Slice the sweet potatoes in half lengthways and then cut each half into thick slices on an angle. Toss in the oil, season with salt and then bake for 20 minutes.

Cut the green leaf off the silver beet and cut into thick strips and the stems into bite sized chunks. Add the stems first, cook for a few minutes, add the leaves and cook for one minute, drain through a colander. Press as much water off as you can.

In a large frypan heat the butter and sauté half the rest of the cashews until they are lightly browned, scoop out and add the wine and the cooked silver beet. Cook this for a few minutes and season. Poach the eggs until just set, cool.

In a small pot add the balsamic vinegar and honey, cook down to a thick but still pourable glaze.

To assemble, scatter the sweet potato and silver beet into the middle of four plates and then pile the buckwheat on top. Garnish with the roasted cashews, poached eggs and cashew yogurt sauce and drizzle with the balsamic reduction.