Bordi Bettina Campolucci - Happy food: fast, fresh, simple vegan

There is no such thing as a self-made man/woman. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success. unknown Thank you for all of the support and love along the way. This is for every single one of you. xx CONTENTS My earliest memories are of growing up in East Africa (Tanzania).

Barely wearing shoes, spending weekends on the beach, following my mother to the local markets in the pursuit of the freshest, best-quality fruits and vegetables, and haggling with the stallholders to get the best possible price. My mother was sharp and pretty hardcore when it came to negotiating, and everyone at the markets always knew she was coming. Looking back at it now I can appreciate how lucky I was and what an idyllic childhood I was able to experience. Food was a big part of family life; my parents were good cooks. Growing up in a multi-cultural home with a Norwegian father and a Danish/Bulgarian mother I experienced an array of different food traditions. Our trips to see family, and our holidays in general, always revolved around what we ate, which restaurants we visited and what exciting new flavours we experienced.

My Norwegian grandmother who lived in Sweden would forage and pick what she had available in her garden and knock up home-made jams, cordials and pickles, while my Bulgarian grandmother would cook up a feast for every major national holiday, choosing the freshest produce she could get hold of in the local market. For me, I think cooking really began when I was six years old and had mastered the art of cooking pancakes, which I would proudly demo at breakfast to all my friends who came over for sleepovers. I was gifted a childrens cookbook and that was it I was hooked. Then at the tender age of 11 my family relocated to Sweden, and this began an escape into the kitchen. I vividly remember this period of my life, which Id describe as taking a palm tree and placing it at the North Pole. The differences between Africa and Scandinavia were not only visible but could be felt by my little heart.

The change was enormous, and for the first six months I disliked my new life. I found it very difficult to adjust. First of all my background was a mish-mash; I had olive-coloured skin and my hair was much darker than that of the Swedish kids. I also had pretty distinct features, such as prominent eyes and nose. I experienced first hand what being different felt like, and it took a while to get used to. My grandmother stayed with us a lot during this period, and I would seek solace in helping her cook, experimenting with using the fruits of the three apple trees in our garden.

Throughout my school years, cooking was the one skill I knew I was good at and could always trust. During my teens, my parents created a competition where each of us had to cook on alternate weekends. We were each given a budget and within it we had to create a three-course dinner in a set amount of time. This was when I really learnt how to follow recipes and my passion for cooking was awakened. Then, later, I cooked at my parents dinner parties, in the communal kitchens at university, and I catered for my friends birthday celebrations. I was always on the lookout for foodie experiences, so I started working in the food and beverage industry, which transitioned me to study Hotel Management I had discovered a study course that combined theory with the practicality I loved.

At 23, during my last year at university in Spain, I met my husband, who is half Italian and half English and shares my passion for food, coming from a family that has owned restaurants for generations. I decided to stay in the country after I finished my studies, working in different industries for a few years until I started my first little business, called Pockets. Through this I catered to the ever-growing property offices on the Spanish coast, delivering home-made sandwiches and salads. In the summers I catered for the yachts and had another little business called Yacht Hampers. Both went well until the recession hit and many of the offices closed down. This period is now a blur; I tried to find work wherever I could but I didnt really know what I wanted to do in my life.

I knew I had the potential to do something that would bring meaning to my soul, I just didnt know how to get there. So I started working in event management, working crazy hours and running several projects at once. As many of you probably know, this is a tiring industry and at 26 I suffered a string of health issues. A visit to a gynaecologist confirmed that I suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis. I was told that the likelihood of me ever getting pregnant would be next to none and that this was a fate I should prepare myself for. Shocked, to say the least, I knew something had to change.

It was also during this time that an opportunity to run health retreats arose. So I quit and embarked on co-founding and running those. Because of my fondness and passion for food and cooking I was responsible to cook at these retreats. The guidelines were simple: the food had to be 100 per cent plant-based, meaning no animal products whatsoever, gluten-free and free from white sugar. Loving a challenge, I dug into cookbooks and blogs and started finding solutions to these issues, but because I was dealing with my own health condition, I found I was uncovering ways to deal with my symptoms in a natural way, too. Seven months into the new venture and against all odds, I got pregnant.

I am not into labels and would not call myself a vegan, but most of what I eat on a daily basis consists of plant-based foods, and while I dont want to make any claims that these foods helped me to get pregnant, what I can say for sure is that since adding more fruits, vegetables and general plant-based foods into my diet, I feel heaps better. I also cut out gluten around this time, after learning that I had probably been intolerant to it for a very long time, and this was what had been causing the stomach problems I had suffered from for as long as I can remember. I continued to co-run and cook at health retreats for another three years until a good friend of mine, and later my business partner, Mark, encouraged me to pursue my passion. I listened then decided to blindly follow my heart, and thus Bettinas Kitchen was born. I developed my skills on the job by doing courses with the Matthew Kenney Culinary institute, based in Los Angeles, and also started documenting my recipes on social media so that I would remember them. Through this medium I shared my knowledge and created workshops to teach the basics of plant-based foods and how to incorporate them into your everyday life.

Along the way I also encountered numerous clients who suffered intolerances and simply did not know how to replace what they had always had as a part of their diet such as milk, flour and eggs. In the last few years I have worked as a recipe consultant, written articles about how to incorporate plants into your everyday life, conducted pop-up workshops and freelanced and run several health retreats in numerous countries. My passion and expertise lies in how to use everyday ingredients and make them tasty in the simplest possible way. I love finding solutions and ways of cooking ingredients that I would normally never think of, as well as sourcing and finding seasonal fruits and vegetables and creating something yummy! Cooking at retreats that are sometimes in remote places with limited access to equipment has taught me to make the most out of my ingredients and to not overcomplicate food. I want everyone to have a chance to cook from scratch with ingredients that can be found in any supermarket. I am passionate about ingredients; their source, their tastes and functionality and how to make them appeal to all tastes.