Aimee France, maker of artfully bumpy and leaning cakes with ingredients like Earl Grey, calendula, and cognac–tonka bean buttercream, didn’t necessarily expect to become a full-time baker. But when COVID interrupted her college semester, she ended up back at her parents’ house, where she taught herself how to bake. “When I graduated in 2021, my parents were like, ‘All right, Aimee, time to get a job,’” she says. “And I said, ‘Okay, listen: I think I could start a business.’” Clearly, word has spread; she baked Chloë Sevigny and Karen Elson’s wedding cakes, and her creations show up regularly at events around the city. She’s also grown a social-media following — 231,000 on Instagram alone — for her meticulous eating habits and elaborate breakfasts, which involve seasonal ingredients and specialty foods of the sort you might find at your local shoppy shop. This week, France had some time off from baking, which she used to visit her parents for Easter, sing karaoke in Flushing, and devise a deviled-egg flight.

I’m visiting my parents in New Hampshire for Easter, and this is my last full day of the trip and also the first time I’ve spent the holiday with my family in probably five years — I usually stay home and work because, you know, cakes and holidays. I live alone and I’m always making single-portioned meals, so I’ve been really excited to cook for them. Plus, it’s nice to be in a big kitchen and have a grill.

I’ve had this breakfast obsession all April: Greek yogurt from a farm in northern New Hampshire called Brookford Farm. It’s the best Greek yogurt I’ve ever had — super-delicious and creamy, and not too tangy or acidic. It also has what I guess could be considered a barnyard-y flavor — you know when you smell something and can kind of taste it? It kind of tastes like how a farm smells, but not in a bad way. I add walnuts and some local honey.

I always have to have something fresh on the side, and lately, that’s been a fig, a date, and a kiwi. Then I add a jammy egg on the side. I have what I call a three-drink minimum at breakfast: Usually that means an herbal tea — rosemary this time — a coffee, and a juice (or sometimes, like today, coconut water). I’m really into Americanos right now with just a little bit of honey to break the acidity, but not enough to make it sweet.

I go on a long walk after breakfast, and suddenly it’s time for lunch. The night before, I made Guinness-battered fish-filet sandwiches with haddock, and we have a few filets left over. I crisp the fish and put it in an asparagus-fennel salad tossed with tarragon-mustard dressing; I also make a tartar sauce and a warm baguette with salted butter. Afterward, I want a sweet snack and more caffeine, so I have a date filled with smoked cheddar, a Lindt chocolate chick from Easter, and a coconut-water matcha.

The caffeine was needed for a bike ride I’m taking after lunch with my dad on a rail trail — it used to be a railroad track — that goes into Massachusetts. My dad takes biking really seriously: He has a whole outfit. He bikes like he’s training for the Tour de France, and I’m always far behind him. It’s really fun.

Back home, we start thinking about dinner. My dad got a new grill that he’s obsessed with, so I douse some local salmon in a maple tamari and Calabrian chile marinade and throw it on there. He also has a rotisserie appliance, which I use to get some Japanese sweet potatoes super-creamy. I make an asparagus, avocado, and sugar-snap-pea salad with tarragon vinaigrette on the side. A very nice last day.

Today is a travel day. For breakfast, I have a piece of spelt-y whole-wheat baguette from Nick + Sons that I actually brought to New Hampshire from New York. I have some salted butter on that — I prefer thick, cold slices; I like to see teeth marks. On the side, I have a scrambled egg, a fig, a honeycrisp apple, and a date, plus a little dollop of that Greek yogurt. Plus my three drinks: an Americano with honey, rosemary tea, and some green juice.

As a cook, I’m completely self-taught. I have vivid memories of playing Iron Chef America with my friends as a child. We would make things out of random ingredients from my parents’ kitchen and then “judge” each other. I went vegan in high school, and that was a turning point because my mom was like, “I’m not cooking a separate meal for you every night.” As a result, I started cooking most of my own food. I’m not vegan anymore, but it was a learning experience, and it really made me appreciate produce.

My train gets canceled, and the next one isn’t for a few hours. For lunch, because my parents’ fridge is running low, I eat a variation of breakfast: baguette with blackberry jam and salted butter, some Moon Drop grapes, an apple, and walnuts. I go on a walk and sit outside with a Coca-Cola. I have a stomachache, and my parents insist this will help settle it. Plus, my dad is obsessed with Costco and he buys those huge flats of soda.

I’m trying to hydration-max, so on the way to the train station, I buy a lemon-mint tea from a place called Pressed Café. It’s the only fast-casual chain spot in New Hampshire, and people are kind of obsessed with it. I also get a smoothie: spinach, kale, avocado, banana, almonds, cinnamon, flaxseed, almond milk, and almond butter, and I ask for extra mint. As I’m drinking my green smoothie, the man next to me on the train pulls out this beautiful focaccia and prosciutto sandwich, and I’m like, Oh my God, I hate my life right now. I get back to Brooklyn really late and collapse into bed.

Every time I come back to New York after a trip, I bring back a big carry-on cooler filled with food. Yesterday I hauled some leftovers, New Hampshire produce, eggs from my favorite farm, and a bag of frozen blueberries my mom and I picked last summer that I’ll use in my cakes.

Baking became a part of my life during COVID. I went home to New Hampshire for my birthday the day before the world began to shut down, and I ended up staying there for a very long time. Since regular internships weren’t happening that summer, I decided I was going to create my own and try to teach myself everything about baking. I gained a following on Instagram, and when it was safe to come back to New York, I thought, Maybe I should try to sell my baked goods. I bought a table at the Hester Street Fair for a pop-up, and it sold out. So did my next one.

For breakfast, I have Greek yogurt with a nut mix — pecans, pistachios, and almonds — and this really delicious, thick honey that I brought back from a trip to Italy, where I did an art residency in a little lake town earlier this year. I add some honeycrisp apple, a date, and a jammy egg on the side like usual, plus an Americano, green juice, and lavender tea. I’ve been really into lavender tea lately; I make it by steeping lavender buds.

Lunch is a fridge, freezer, and pantry clean-out moment. I have some fresh lumache, a small, shell-shaped pasta, in the freezer, so I make a pasta salad with that. I just recently got Hailee Catalano’s cookbook, and for Easter in New Hampshire, I made a ton of her recipes, including a huge batch of her caponata, a chopped eggplant dish. I froze some and brought it back to New York, and I use it in the pasta salad. I add some carrot, fennel, olives, dried oregano, and this super stagionato — mature — cheese that’s basically like really aged, nutty Parmesan; I brought that back from Italy as well. Then I throw in Pecorino and Castelvetrano olives, and I top it with Fishwife hot-pepper sardines.

Later in the day, I have a photo shoot for my friend’s clothing brand, Buci. We eat some blueberries as a snack. Afterwards, since I’m in Soho, I go to Happier Grocery. They have a great prepared-food selection — I always get cooked proteins from there so I can just add them to whatever vegetables I have at home. I end up buying chicken tenders, a piece of salmon, and this green romesco sauce that is so good. I’ve repurchased it probably five times at this point.

I get home kind of late, and I just want to make something quick for dinner. So I steam a Japanese sweet potato and mix it up with salted butter, and then I have the salmon with some of the green romesco sauce on top. I make an avocado, asparagus, and fennel salad with parsley, Marcona almonds, and a honey-balsamic vinaigrette. I also have a coconut horchata I spotted at Happier Grocery. I’m shocked at how good it is.

That same breakfast again! Greek yogurt with my nut mix, thick honey, and honeycrisp apple, and dried strawberries and blackberries from a brand called Ziba Foods. Plus a date, a jammy egg, and my three-drink minimum.

I answer some emails and go to a Pilates class, and it’s so nice out that I decide I’ll have a picnic in the park. I stop by Takahachi Bakery in Bushwick and get their egg-salad sandwich, which is honestly one of my top-five favorite sandwiches in New York. They make a milk bread that is absolutely incredible, and it’s all perfectly seasoned with salt and pepper. Oh my God, so good. I eat it with Autumncrisp grapes — these giant green grapes that are really crunchy — a homemade trail mix of pistachios, walnuts, almonds, pecans, dried strawberries, and blackberries; and hazelnut dark chocolate that I brought back from Italy.

For dinner, I end up reworking my leftovers: salmon from Happier Grocery, romesco sauce, and Japanese sweet potato, except this time with ghee instead of salted butter. I make a sugar-snap-pea, fennel, parsley, and avocado salad with a maple, lemon, and blackcurrant Dijon vinaigrette. I use seaweed sheets to make little bites of everything and drink some coconut water and lemon-lavender water.

Afterward, I end up going to karaoke in Flushing for a friend’s birthday, but first I make a sparkling matcha with honey. I sing two songs: “Somebody to Love,” by Justin Bieber, and a duet of “No Air,” by Jordin Sparks.

For breakfast, I try some Maple Hill yogurt. People told me it was going to have that barnyard-y flavor, but it’s really sour, and I actually don’t like it. I have it with nuts and a dark autumn honey; the label says the bees pollinate near knotweed, which apparently has something to do with how it tastes. I found it robust and super-floral, with a nice caramelized flavor. Then more of the crispy grapes, a date, an apple, and a soft-boiled egg. I go through little fixations on certain things, and today I decide I’m now going to be obsessed with soft-boiled eggs rather than jammy ones.

Lately, people have been doing “eggs six ways” online — basically just getting very inventive with their eggs; a hard-boiled egg with peanut butter and jelly or salmon roe, for instance. To be honest, the videos, and the way some people are choosing their toppings, really frighten me. I decide to try to do it in a way that I would actually enjoy and not get grossed out by. I collect different types of mustard and end up making a deviled-egg flight using some of my favorite mustards that I kind of associate with spring and summer flavor profiles — a blueberry-seed mustard from Raye’s, a company in Maine, and a blackcurrant Dijon, a tarragon mustard, and another honey-balsamic mustard, all from Edmond Fallot. It is a lotta eggs, but they’re really good. And they kind of look like the Pretty Patties from SpongeBob.

I do some work and then I make what I call a little kid’s dinner: chicken tenders; baked Japanese sweet-potato fries; and raw sugar snap peas, carrot, and fennel. I add an assortment of sauces. There’s Kewpie mayo, because I prefer mayonnaise with my fries; tarragon mustard; the romesco sauce; and a yellow datterino ketchup I stumbled upon in L.A. years ago. When I was back there this past October, I went around town trying to track it down again; I tried all the shoppy shops and only found it on my last day. It’s incredible. I scroll Pinterest before bed, mostly looking at food pictures — I’m not searching for recipes so much as pretty, aesthetic photos. I’m like, Ooh, that looks yummy. I can make that.

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