The Tamesis
Sometimes a recipe isn’t just about food; It’s about the idea of belonging and the comfort found through motherly love. Now that I live far from my childhood home, I find myself making my mother’s coffee walnut cake more often than I should. In fact, my entire bakery was inspired by the mother-daughter bond discovered through baking.
My mother left New Zealand because she fell in love with my French father. She renovated our home and turned it into a bed and breakfast, sewing everything herself. We’ve grown up dining with guests from all over the world, and cakes and baked goods have always been center stage – from Victoria sponge cake filled with crème fraîche and raspberry jam, to mouth-watering dark chocolate cake and 4pm scones. Everything is freshly baked using seasonal ingredients. Baking was my mother’s love language and her connection to her roots.
But perhaps more than anything else her coffee and walnut cake was special to me because it instilled in me the knowledge of how to be part of a country that is not originally yours. She inherited this recipe from her mother in New Zealand. Using strong coffee and fresh walnuts, this is a classic New Zealand cake made at home. I don’t know if it was the type of walnuts, her care for them, or just nostalgia, but I never felt like mine matched hers.
I come from the southwestern region of France, famous for its walnuts. Growing up, my mother and I would go to our neighbors’ houses and pick them right off the tree. She always put them in the same straw basket, and I would spend hours in the kitchen cracking the shells with a decades-old nutcracker, cutting my hands in the process. While I peeled the nuts, she prepared the batter and stirred the cooling coffee. Then pour the batter into two separate pans and spread evenly. Then we poke in chopped walnuts (my favorite part) and toast them. The aroma of coffee and walnuts filled the kitchen as we patiently waited for the cake to cool and then top it with coffee buttercream.
In those moments, baking becomes a therapy session. I would sit in the kitchen and witness the respect and love she brought to the process. It’s time to stop, focus on just one task, and enjoy the process and time with her. This cake still reminds me of how strong she was in moving to a foreign land, speaking a different language, but staying true to her roots through baking.
I followed a similar path, moving from France to New York. Not only did I fall in love with the city, I fell in love with my husband; a trip that was supposed to last a year now turned into eight—just like my mother. Being homesick and missing the things my mom baked every day led me to open a bakery in the East Village, From Lucie, with her recipes on the menu.
I remember standing in the kitchen and asking her if she regretted leaving New Zealand. I had my own questions at the time. She said something that is still fresh in my mind. She explained that while she loved her mother and the life she left behind, she was compelled to write her story. Being away from home doesn’t mean losing yourself, she said. You can create a new place to belong while keeping where you came from at the center of it all.
