Lockdown crisis sees accountant cooking up a new career blogging about sustainable eating

A mum who swapped her job as a chef for accountancy when extreme morning sickness forced her to stop working with food told how a lockdown crisis saw her cook up a new career – blogging about sustainable eating.

Cash rich but time poor, when schools shut in March 2020 because of Covid-19, Rebecca Bevington-Smith, 41, found herself “pushed to the limit,” as she struggled to home school her son Benjamin, 12, and daughter Annabelle, nine, while working from home.

A high achiever, who had worked as an accountant for a big London firm, and was now balancing the books at a small but ambitious local business, she recalls breaking down on her husband, Andrew, 40, a council finance worker, in July 2020, feeling on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Rebecca, of Purley, south east London, who recalls stepping up to manage the office as some staff were furloughed, said: “I was just completely exhausted.

“I was wearing really thin. I thought I was close to having a nervous breakdown.

“I was so stressed trying to teach the children and manage the office.”

She continued: “I’m not ashamed to admit I cried. I’d gone into the office one day in July 2020 and ended up phoning my husband, who was working from home that day, and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. Is it okay if I quit my job?’”

Starting out working in the food industry when she left school at 17 and landed jobs as a waitress and bartender, Rebecca loved it.

But, feeling she needed a more stable career, she also completed an accountancy apprenticeship.

Still interested in food, in 2005 she also gained a first-class pass diploma in food and wine, at London’s award-winning Leith’s School of Food and Wine.

“It was one of the best years of my life,” she said. “I gained some fantastic skills.

“I learned that anyone can follow a recipe but, when it comes to creating a truly wonderful dish, you really have to know what to do with the ingredients to bring out the best in them.”

After graduating in 2006, she “fulfilled a lifelong dream” and took a job as a cook with the National Trust at Osterley Park, in west London.

She said: “I’d always wanted to work in a tearoom. I love afternoon tea so much.

“My dad used to take me to tea shops as a little girl at the weekends and I just fell in love with them.”

She added: “It was a real dream come true. Whenever I got all my work done, I would just bake cakes.

“I loved it – I was so happy for a year.”

Then, after marrying Andrew in 2008, she took a new position closer to home, running the catering at a local college.

“I was literally there for two weeks,” she said.

“I was pregnant with Benjamin – who was a wedding night baby – and I had terrible morning sickness.

“It was so awful. I couldn’t be around food at all.”

So, she quit her job and returned to accounting, where she remained – balancing being a mum to two children with bringing in a good income to help fund the family’s living expenses.

At first, she worked for a local business, looking after their books.

But she was soon on track for bigger and better things – gaining a promotion within the firm, while on track for management.

She said: “Accountancy just paid so much better than cooking. I kind of lost my way a bit for a while.

“I put everything into my job, but the children were being dropped off at breakfast clubs and my daughter would cry and say, ‘I don’t want to go.’

“I would tell her, ‘I’m really sorry, we don’t have a choice – this is the way it is.'”

She continued: “I feel like so many people get stuck in this situation and you end up not giving your children your all.

“They just want time to help cook and play games. I feel really guilty that I missed so much of it.

“There were even times when I bought ready meals to feed my family, which isn’t me at all.”

All that changed when the schools closed in the first lockdown and Rebecca found herself hitting a wall.

She said: “Lockdown changed our family’s life. When Andrew gave me his blessing to leave my job, I quit within the hour.

“Suddenly, home schooling wasn’t a problem anymore and the change in my children was incredible.”

She added: “They’ve never been so happy and we’ve never been so close. We’re having fun together.”

Instead of finding a new job straight away, Rebecca loved having more time and decided to enjoy the slower pace of life.

She said: “I ended up taking some time off and thought, ‘I really want to get back to food.'”

She contined: “I wanted to reassess what was important to me.”

Both keen gardeners, Andrew and Rebecca spent the summer of 2020 focusing on growing food and working on their vegetable plots with their children.

“My husband is a really keen DIY-er and very green-fingered,” Rebecca said.

She added: “It was a bit of a family project during the lockdowns. He built raised beds and we even laid a patio and built a greenhouse. We spent so much time outside – and it was glorious sunshine.

“But the summer of 2021 was our most successful season so far. We even grew potatoes.”

With the garden in place, Rebecca’s kitchen was soon bursting with produce – and her brain with recipe ideas.

With the seed firmly sown, to share her passion for all things foodie, in September 2021 she started a blog – All About That Taste – showcasing her cooking and returning her to her true passion.

She said: “The idea is that I can get my recipes out there and teach people a little bit more about how to eat sustainably.

“Often people would like to make changes towards a planet-friendly diet, but they don’t really know how to do it – or where to start. But it’s not tricky to make switches.”

She continued: “I care so passionately about food and I like to make every meal really nice for my family. I’d love to be able to teach people how to use things that you grow in your garden or on your windowsill.”

Devoting herself to creating content for the blog ahead of the big launch, Rebecca forged ahead, picking up skills in photography, social media and recipe testing along the way.

Now, after launching All About That Taste last week, she is more certain than ever that she made the right decision to swap the world of finance for a career promoting the benefits of sustainable eating.

Rebecca said: “We grab salad bits from the garden – broad beans, leaves – and cook them and eat.

“The children happily eat everything because they’ve picked it themselves and they’ve grown it.

“I just think to myself, ‘This is how it should be.’ It’s really nice to be able to do that.”

She added: “I’m hoping that people will be encouraged to cook more.”

Rebecca also runs Instagram and Facebook accounts devoted to sustainable food and now dreams of writing a cookbook.

She said: “I became vegan last year, after going vegetarian when training to become a chef, as we learned a lot about animal welfare.”

She continued: “My husband and son do eat meat and my daughter is vegetarian – I do cook some vegan meals for the family but I don’t mind cooking meat for them, just not eating it!

“Really, what I want to do is help people to eat more sustainably and understand where food comes from and how it affects the rest of the world – by making everything that I cook delicious and tasty.

“Recipes should be something anyone and everyone can follow.”

For more information, visit Rebecca’s blog at https://allaboutthattaste.co.uk/about/ or follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/allaboutthattaste_uk/