Worn, fabric covered copies of out-of-print cookbooks stand, leaning against each other, on the kitchen counter in my mothers home. There's a tatty Joy of Cooking -- the pages all marked up and the binding loose, strings hanging off the spine. There are diet books with shiny covers in blue and red, looking out of place. Like the new kids on the bus. There's a series of international cookbooks from the 80's with faded photographs of street food scenes. And one soft blue book with few markings, bound in linen, with a small herbs de provence embossed into the cover. The edges are slightly worn down from being handled over decades. The cover has oil and water stains, signs of affection. That blue linen book is always out in the stack no matter where my mum and dad have lived over the years.

I grew up thumbing through the pages, looking at the pictures of Provence and reading the recipes. I remember I would take it and go sit in a spot of sun somewhere and devour it. It's funny, I don't remember my mother cooking out of it (that I'm aware of). It was more of an inspiration book. You know the kind. You keep it around to give you ideas and reference points for recipes you have half-formed in your head.

I went home this past weekend and my mum brought it out after I mentioned that I was looking for edible flower recipes. Every recipe in the desserts section includes flowers and herbs -- rose "snow eggs" which are like raw meringues in cream, lavender almond tarts, rosemary lemon cakes. Everything is simple and elegant simultaneously. I'm tempted to cook through the entire volume and make my kitchen a French countryside fantasy. Come Spring, I might do just that.

While I was visiting I promised to make my mother a treat as a thank you for driving me in the snow and ice through Baltimore to the Epic Workshop I attended. Cake makes a good thanks for risking your life so I could learn about photography. I had to throw lavender in there after we fell back in love with our favorite kitchen tome together.

What makes these Neapolitan? Chocolate cake + strawberry filling + vanilla lavender frosting. I'm mixing origins here (Italian and French). Italian and French folk of the world, forgive me. The Neapolitan ice cream vibe is the closest thing I could use to describe the flavor combination here.

This is actually three recipes. One for the grain free chocolate cake. One for the quick strawberry chia jam (that I eat by the spoonful). And one for the vegan buttercream. It's all a lot easier than it might seem. Trust me.