13 March 2023

Inside Out

Rakahinonga. Entrepreneur

WRITER: CARLY THOMAS

PHOTOGRAPHER: HELEN LEA WALL

Lisa Brink has built her business – The Baked Dane – up from a maternity-leave hobby to a thriving and beloved Horowhenua-based bakery. But success can be a façade. Now, after several years, Lisa is taking some time to step back from the grind and devote time to herself, her health and the passions that drive her.

“People get put in boxes and I don’t fit into any of them,” Lisa says. “I’ve been told I am someone who can have tea with the Queen and then go and pop a beer with the Mongrel Mob. I see everyone as the same. And it’s how I want my kids to be, too.”

Lisa Brink is curled into a chair in her newly moved-into house in Taitoko Levin. She’s in a reflective mood and it’s time, she says, to take a pause. Lisa has been working in a whirlwind for the past six years, connecting with her customers in her warm and upfront way. But now, having stepped away from a relationship and into being a solo mum, Lisa says, “It is time to stop running and to start to look at myself from the inside.”

Lisa, 35, set up her business, The Baked Dane, right after the birth of her first child. When she began making and selling traditional Danish knækbrød crackers and sourdough bread at the Ōhau Market, she found that people couldn’t get enough of it. “They would sell out in a few hours. It was like watching water turn into gold. It just worked,” she remembers. The hobby-turned-business grew quickly, and Lisa hurtled after it. She quit her daytime job and turned her guesthouse into a commercial kitchen, spending hours rolling out crackers by hand and mixing big batches of bread until her arms hurt so much she could hardly pick up a cup of tea. As her brand grew, she employed staff and bought specialised machinery. “But the more successful I got, the less I could read my own story and recognise it. I knew that I had done something great, but I didn’t feel it.”

Lisa describes the series of big changes from that time in her life like she is looking at it from afar. She had moved from “living the high life” in Auckland to a slower-paced Levin lifestyle and become a mum with, she says, “no idea how to do that.” On top of being in a relationship on shaky ground, Lisa was coping with an ongoing health issue. “I have something called a perianal abscess. Basically, I have an abscess in my right butt cheek and it has affected everything. It is literally a pain in the arse.” Throwing herself into The Baked Dane was her way of coping. “It was my escape mechanism, it was my way of not facing things,” Lisa says. “I felt really trapped at that time and I didn’t like that feeling. I tried to run but I couldn’t go anywhere. And then I thought, ‘Well, when you get given lemons you make lemonade,’ and that’s what I did.” With a mood-lifting laugh, Lisa adds wryly, “I got some really sour lemons and I have made the best lemonade ever!”

“At first, I was baking out of the kitchen in the house. I was carrying extra ovens in and rolling crackers on every surface. I was making bread in a huge sixty-litre bucket. The Kenwood mixer had burnt out, and so I had bought a paint stirrer that I sterilised and attached to a drill. I was standing on the kitchen bench making bread and it was just getting out of hand. So I moved out into the guesthouse. Every day I got more orders; it just kept growing.”

Lisa developed anxiety as a result of her flat-tack life, but didn’t believe the diagnosis given by her doctor at first. “I explained that I had this pain in my chest and I thought it was a tumour. I couldn’t breathe, but I wasn’t a person who would be anxious. Not me.” A friend gave her a nudge towards going back to the doctor. “She asked me if I talk and I said, ‘Yes, all the time!’ And she said, ‘But you don’t talk about how you feel. You leave your emotions at the door.’ That shook me up a bit and if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have taken those first steps,” Lisa says.

Now, in her new light-filled home, with her hand-picked vintage furniture and her kids by her side, Lisa is finally able to process everything. An operation on her abscess at the end of last year – number fifty-six – has eased her pain, granting her some room to figure out what she wants to do with her life. “I know I have a successful business that I can grow with, but what do I want to be?” she asks. “It’s time to clean out my pantry and get things straight.”

One thing Lisa is sure of is her passion for food and The Baked Dane products. Her mormor – grandma – made traditional Danish open sandwiches and as a child Lisa would marvel over the layering of each very specific ingredient. “My mormor would explain in detail the importance of getting the perfect balance of the sweet, sour, salty and bitter components, while also making it look enticing.” Growing up, Lisa lived above a pizzeria owned by a Turkish dad and his two sons. “As soon as I came home, I would chuck my school bag in the apartment and then be down there doing dishes or sitting on the chest freezer just hanging out. When I was tall enough to see over the counter I started spinning dough.” Lisa’s greatest joy is how food brings people together. “Making food for people is my language, it’s how I show love,” Lisa says. “And I love my customers. The business is still something I love and that’s going to continue.”

Separating out the business from her and her children’s (Louis, 6, and Luka, 4) home has also been a real balancer, helping her actually feel like the good mum she already was. “I can see a shop, with a big window where people can see all the behind-the-scenes processes. We are very proud of what we do and how we do it. Things are so mass-produced now, but I like things done the old-school way and I want to show that. I want to enjoy my kids while they are still so young. Now that I am away from living where I work, I realise I wasn’t there completely with the kids before. You are always at work when it is right there. The more balance in life that I get, the better I feel about me as a mum. I need to step back and enjoy it. Setting up a lounge bed, watching TV and eating popcorn with the kids suddenly feels right.” Uncurling from her chair and leaning forward, eyes intense, she says, “I lost myself a little bit, I did. But I’m coming back now.”