“Do you think Darius is going to come help you today?” I asked as Natalie flittered nervously about the kitchen.

“He f***ing better!” She says matter-of-factly, as if Darius, Natalie’s oldest child at 22 years old, had any other option but to help his mother.

It was 10 a.m. and Darius still wasn’t awake, as is typical, however on this day Natalie is preparing for the Nederland Farmer’s Market, and she asked for Darius’s assistance days ago.

Wrangling an absent-minded 20-something while feverishly preparing delicious delectables is certainly nerve-wracking, however Natalie Duplessy, Owner and Head Baker of Peace, Love, and Cake, is not just used to the chaos, she succeeds despite it.

“Being a single mom definitely helped me to learn how to strive in the chaos; I did NOT do well with chaos before I became a mom. And then being a chef just kind of solidified it all,” Natalie said, speaking to how the restaurant industry runs on stress and chaos, as is running after two toddler siblings that are just barely a year apart in age.

Darius Ramos was born on February 18, 2001, and Jhonan Ramos (Jho) was born on September 11, 2002, both born while Natalie attended Job Corps in Bangor, Maine, beginning her formal education in the culinary world that she fell in love with.

As a newborn Darius was an instant hit with all the other students in the Job Corps culinary program, as Natalie had no other choice but to bring Darius with her to school while she attended classes and ran the school’s cafeteria.

“Darius was an instant celebrity on campus, and not just in the culinary department,” Natalie said. “People that I didn’t even know knew Darius; literally everybody on campus knew Darius.”

As Natalie hypnotically whips up a pineapple coconut pastry cream she recounts returning to school after a maternity leave and enrolling Darius in the campus daycare so she could return to class.

“It was convenient to have him right there on campus with me all day, it made it a lot easier to breastfeed, and if he was being fussy I could run over there and calm him down.”

“Every once in a while the daycare would let me a roll a crib over into the bakery and we would post him in the dry storage room in between the flour and the sugar and he would just hang out with us while we were decorating cakes,” Natalie smiled, remembering the awkward early years as a young new mom.

“By the time I had Jho I was done with school. I had been through the savory cooking program, the pastry cooking program, I had joined cooking competitions, I had catered; I had done almost everything in culinary service, let alone the program,” Natalie spoke of how she desired at this time to be a stay-at-home mother, though it didn’t turn out as she pictured it.

“I wanted to get the full mom experience. I wanted to make all the meals and bake all the birthday cakes, if somebody fell and skinned their knees I wanted to be the one to take care of them. But after a couple of months of only having interaction with my two very young nonverbal children I started to go a little crazy,” Natalie admitted. “I wanted adult humans who could converse with me and commiserate with me.”

Natalie continued about how the time spent at home with newborn Jho and toddler Darius made it that much harder when it came time for Natalie to return to work and attempt to enroll them into daycare.

“Jho and I were attached at the hip, literally!” Natalie recalled. “They would not let me go. They wouldn’t let anybody pick them up, feed them, hold them, put them to bed, change their diaper. That kid had trust issues from day one.”

“At daycare because of their ages they were put in different rooms, Jho was in the infant room and Darius was in the toddler room, and when I would go to drop them off Jho would hold onto me for dear life and scream bloody murder. Jho would not calm down until Darius came into the room to hold his hand.”

“It was like an hour-long process every day. I have so much respect and admiration and straight love for the women that took care of my kids at that daycare center, because they put up with a lot of sh**.”

As it goes, life threw some hurdles at Natalie that changed her life and the fabric of her family that she had built in Maine. Natalie’s relationship with Darius and Jho’s father deteriorated to the point of them all being forced through an ugly and personal custody battle. Natalie’s already fragile life in Maine was shattered.

“Maine was a totally different environment than I was used to, and I didn’t have my family support system because they were all back in Connecticut,” Natalie said.

“I’ve always felt like I was on the outskirts of my family anyway. I’ve always been the black sheep. So as a teenager I learned to build my own family. When I left to go to school in Maine I was already feeling like my ‘real’ family was abandoning me and that I was in turn abandoning my self-made family.”

“Then in Maine when I had the kids I felt very alone, like I didn’t have many people to lean on, and those I did lean on weren’t exactly trustworthy. I learned that lesson the hard way, and that made it all that much harder when I had to go back to work.”

“I had to work two jobs to be able to afford daycare and our apartment and the car that I needed to be able to take them to daycare and go to work,” Natalie said, beginning to get stressed and agitated just thinking about it.

“In Maine public transportation stops at 6 p.m., and I worked until 9, and my work was four miles from the daycare and another five miles from there to get home, which on foot pushing a double stroller with one child refusing to sit in it AT ALL, it makes for a really, really long walk home!” Natalie’s movements in the kitchen have become more erratic and drawers are beginning to be slammed shut.

Natalie, having come to Maine saddled with trust issues, put her faith in a lot of the wrong people and unfortunately paid a dire price. The ensuing custody battle with her ex had destroyed friendships, put a halt to any of Natalie’s career aspirations, and nearly separated her completely from her children.

“I stayed in Maine for another year trying to survive and trying to make sure I could see my kids every moment that I possibly could, and then it got to the point when I couldn’t anymore. I was homeless. I was living in hotel rooms, and if I couldn’t get a hotel room I was sleeping in my car, I just couldn’t sustain,” Natalie’s only choice was to return to Connecticut and to spend several months sleeping on her father’s couch.

“I was immediately reminded why I left his house at 15 years old in the first place.”

Natalie sits to take a break from all her prep work. It’s nearly 11:30 in the morning and still no word from Darius. As Natalie gets five words into talking about leaving Maine for Connecticut she breaks down into tears.

“Leaving my kids in Maine is still to this day the absolutely hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” She says in between sobs.

“Summers were never long enough,” As the two and half months of summer was the only time Natalie had with Darius and Jho for several years, as their father refused to adhere to the specifications of their custody agreement.

As she became more stable she wasn’t just able to sustain, but thrive. Her culinary career was taking off, as her work in five-star restaurants was gaining attention and earning shoutouts in the New York Times, and she was able to afford her own apartment and transportation again.

There were many uneasy years but eventually she was able to provide a place for herself and for Darius and Jho to grow as teenagers. Though they spent those teenage years processing the anguish of what happened in their formative years, Natalie gave them the comfortable and safe space needed for them to express their turmoil and to learn to be better adults, as far as how they think, how they act, and how they treat others.

“Someone once said to me that good adults try to be the adult that they needed when they were young but didn’t have or couldn’t have,” Natalie said. “I’ve always tried to be that person for them that I needed and didn’t have. I’ve always wanted them to feel like they have a home to go to, even if I didn’t have a house… even if I didn’t physically have a home to go to.”

Natalie no longer cries and regains her focus and starts cutting perfect circles of delicious sponge cake to make individual little cakes. After all their ups and downs, Natalie’s relationship with both Darius and Jho is stronger than ever before. As both Darius and Jho shakily navigate early adulthood, they each look to their mother for advice and guidance.

Jho currently lives in a suburb of Chicago and is working in restaurant management; they also have dreams of pursuing voice acting and improv.

Darius lives in Nederland and works as a line cook at both Tres Gringos and the Gold Hill Inn. Both Darius and Jho are amazing graphic artists, each with their own unique style and skills, and both hope to follow their artistic passions and turn them into careers.

Natalie, after working in elegant (and some not-so elegant) kitchens all across Maine and Connecticut, has elevated her culinary career since moving to Nederland. After expertly navigating the pitfalls of baking at elevation, she has started her own baking and catering business Peace, Love, and Cake.

Natalie is beyond proud of her children, though she still can’t help but to be a stereotypical “Mom” sometimes.

“I wish Darius was a little more open about his life with me…but he doesn’t talk to anyone about his life, so I’m trying not to take it personally,” Natalie laughs. “But still, I’m like, ‘I’m your mommy, TALK TO ME!”

“My favorite Darius moment is this one year for Mother’s Day, in first or second grade every kid in the class made cards for their moms and Darius’ card had this line that always sticks out to me. He wrote ‘I love you so much that when I look at you I smile and my teeth shatter into hearts’. It’s the cutest, most sweetest thing he’s ever done,” Natalie smiled from ear to ear.

“Jho will call me and talk to me for hours about anything and everything in their life, and we have three-hour conversations every time that we talk.”

“So, my favorite Jho moment…we were at a circus and it was our second or third time at the circus so Jho was feeling like an old pro, that nervousness that he usually keeps in his shoulders wasn’t there.”

“We were waiting in line and these clowns were entertaining the kids, and this one clown came up and was doing tricks and made a balloon animal for Darius, and when the clown gets to Jho he says ‘you’re a handsome young man, what’s your name?’, and with his hands on his hips and with all the sass in the world Jho stated ‘my name is Jhonan and I look like Obama’, and then just turned and walked away from the clown.”

As Natalie puts the finishing touches on her desserts she gives one final reflection on the trials and tribulations of being a mother.

“Being their mother is the most important thing that I’ve ever done in my life,” she says, delicately piping pineapple coconut pastry cream onto circles of soft sponge cake, tears welling up again but of an entirely different, happier variety.

And by the way, Darius did eventually show up to help his mother… after 2 p.m.