Our Food Philosophy

Sharing and preparing recipes binds us to other people. For us, making the recipes of people who live far away, or those who have died, or even those who live just down the street, reminds us of their presence in our lives. The Away Cafe is as much about relationships as it is about delicious food. We post these recipes to make your food lives better, but also to invite your friendship.  

The Swedish pancakes we make, for example, connect us to our (great) grandpa’s Swedish nanny, Esther Akerberg, whom we never met. She had no children of her own, and we count her as part of our family. Many descendants of our (great) great grandparents love the recipe—the pancakes are fluffy and taste lightly and sweetly of butter. When we make them, we are sharing a physical experience with the other friends and relatives who make them. Smelling the butter and buttermilk notes as they cook, then tasting them--rolled up and crunchy with sugar--links us to each other and to the past. The pancakes also nourish relationships when we make them for friends at the family cabins where Esther used to summer, too. When we make the turkey kale soup we remember the light-footed artist in breezy dresses and Mexican jewelry who is godmother to our youngest. The many meals we shared when we lived in Boston all together raising our young children in parallel and the annual pilgirmages we make to each other’s presence.

As we prepare one of our own recipes, we think about who will eat the food now as well as remembering the person who gave us the recipe. Our baking recipes often make more than we want to eat, so we get to share, and that enhances our connections in the neighborhood. We have been collecting recipes in an organized way since Kate was pregnant with Amelia--that was the form that pregnancy nesting took for Kate. Recipe collection is our main approach to recording family history, and it also builds our family future.