Recipe For Life

(by Tizzy and Isabel Harbaugh)

Ever since Isabel was a little girl learning to chop vegetables without sacrificing any fingers, we’ve spent so many hours cooking together that we finish each other’s sentences while stirring and tasting. (Tizzy: “I think it needs….” Isabel: “Cumin.”) After years of trading off tasks in our kitchen's tight quarters, we’ve arrived at several mantras that comprise our collective philosophy, and have become a recipe for life.

*Recipes are guidelines, not rules. Our kitchen cabinets are often decorated with snippets from food magazines. But a recipe for Brussels sprouts Caesar or red lentil curry is only the foundation; then we start free-forming—olive oil instead of butter, and definitely extra paprika. (Our signature dish is the mélange—a potpourri of anything we can scrounge from the fridge, pantry, or garden that is only loosely informed by recipes.) It's a conviction that extends into other arenas of life, like travel, when we make sure that an itinerary is never etched in stone, so we can always embrace a new adventure, should it come along.