Cozina Botanika Seed to Palate Food Forest Restaurant

It all starts as a dream. Growing up one of the most cherrished moments was the fragrant smells of the sweet fruits and flowers of the amazing display of the events organized by my family business in the middle of the city of Guadalajara. The hacienda like house of the family business become lively when featuring fashion shows of the clothes designed and made by the small factory. The colorful guacamayas hanging on the big trees. The fountain in the middle. The guitar player... perhaps that was what seeded my own vision. As a young woman i designed some of my own clothes and started a small women's cooperative with 9 seamstress creating fashion shows at the restaurant where i was manager an legal representative for 10 years.

Then, in 1997 i was introduced to the concept of 'organic'. And this information touched me deeply. It made me question everything i was doing. I was a bank executive in the morning, in the evenings i was a restaurant manager and on my days off i was the organizer of volunteers of free medical service for the barrios.

In those days i was starting to practice dream yoga, a discipline i started to learn inspired by dzogchen teachings. My dreams had become more vivid, and i was able to remember many of them, on detail, finding that by consciously entering the dream world i was able to expand my consciousness and improve my daily life.

The word organic when deep into my consciousness and it revolutionized my whole world. Even though i eated the 'normal' kind of healthy (yogurt, apple, etc.) i realized there was much more depth to what eating healthy really meant. So i started learning about nutrition and transitioning to a vegetarian diet with the most organic foods i could find in those days available in the markets. I ended up quitting both of my jobs and my volunteer work.

I started my search for organic, realizing that in those days there wasn't much available. So, as good as a city woman with a gardening book can do, I started my first home garden. I encountered many challenges, and very few people that i could ask for help. One of the biggest challenges i found was the lack of organic seeds locally available.

I become a volunteer on a seed project. After 6 months of immersing myself in working with the land I become a cofounder of an NGO for the preservation of organic seeds.

I started to work in school gardens. And decided that one day, i will have an organic restaurant, to serve healthy food from the garden. And that the clothes that i will design will be an educational line. This was the start of Food Forest Restaurant and the Botanika fashion.

Over the last 20 years i have collected and grown edible plants from the tropical regions of the world. Until 2019 my kitchen had served usually small groups of 10 to 20 people. I had been focused on finding food crops, growing seeds, learning/teaching.

Pangea Festival was a joyful celebration of art and food cocreated with my partner conscious hip hop artist, painter, food lover Napenda Love. For 3 days about 100 people feasted in the gardens and the concept Food Forest Restaurant was born.

Now I am working on a business plan and ready to welcome investment of the new and most botanically diverse organic Farm to Table Restaurant, Pangea art gallery and Bioconstruction made wellness vacation Bungalows, we plan on opening on Pangea's November Festival 2019.

On requesting more information about investments, buying your wellness vacation membership and/or booking your ticket for Pangea Fest November, please email buenafortunagardens@gmail.com

May the Earth bless you!

Kitzia Kokopelmana