Belinda Lombard learned her craft as a chef the hard way, working her way up through a range of jobs in the Scottish hospitality industry during a 15-year OE trip, before returning to found Lemongrass Catering in Tauranga six years ago.
"They wouldn't let me in the kitchen at first because I didn't have any formal training," says Ms Lombard, who went to the UK at the age of 21. "But I'm probably one of the few chefs that could walk into a hotel and do anything from cleaning a toilet, to pulling a pint, or booking people in."
And, obviously, cook. She credits her catering skills to working under really good chefs for what turned into a 15-year stint at the Spittal of Glenshee Hotel, in Perthshire.
A former Otumoetai College girl, she returned to Tauranga seven years ago with her accountant husband Pierre, with an 8-month-old baby and another on the way. But after working at a busy hotel for years, it was a culture shock to be homebound. After a year, she set up Lemongrass Catering, initially with a small kitchen in a converted garage of their house.
"We grew it from nothing," she says. "One job led to another."