(6/12) “I could always tell when Sebastian’s furniture company...

(6/12) “I could always tell when Sebastian’s furniture company was struggling. Because he talks to himself very loudly. Even in the other room I can hear him: ‘Please God, how do I fix this? What am I going to do?’ And around the time Camila became a teenager, he was talking to himself so much. He was very stressed about the business, but it was more than that, because Camila had begun to develop new symptoms. This time there were rashes all over her skin, and the bloodwork showed a very rare autoimmune disease. She spent so much time in the hospital. Test after test. Medication after medication, but the problem only grew worse. Camila was such a little warrior. She smiled through every procedure, but I didn’t want this life for her. So I begged our pediatrician: ‘Please, enough with the medicine. Let me try to heal her with food.’ By this time we’d become very good friends, so I think he trusted me. Or maybe he’d just given up, because he gave me his blessing to stop the medication. I went back to the kitchen. Camila’s diet was so clean already, but I went even deeper. I tried vegetarian. I tried vegan. Then one day I found an article about a gluten free diet, so I tried that. I created all sorts of new recipes: cashew pizzas, sweet potato pancakes, coconut granola. Every single day I took pictures of Camila’s skin. And after only two months, it was completely clear! Our pediatrician couldn’t believe the results. He even asked if he could share my discoveries with other patients. By then I had a huge collection of recipes, but still, I never imagined myself as a chef. For me cooking was part of my job as a mom. But then something happened that made me start dreaming. One afternoon my cousin brought her boyfriend over to our house. He was the owner of the largest bakery in Peru. And he had Parkinson’s disease, so his diet was very restrictive. I served him some of Camila’s special sandwich bread, made of quinoa, amaranth, and rice. He chewed it very slowly. It was hard for me to tell his reaction. But then he took another bite. And another. ‘I’ve eaten at gluten-free restaurants all over the world,’ he said. ‘And this is the best bread I’ve ever tasted.’”