I preheat the oven and then prep the sausage-egg casserole and the vegetarian tortilla casserole, continually referring to the flour-flecked, handwritten recipe cards from my mom and grandma’s old recipe box. I had found it hidden in the back of one of the cabinets and spent countless nights thumbing through all the recipes, not realizing they would be the foundation for what I would make at the inn.

In the city, cooking had seemed like such a luxury. We always seemed to be in a rush, and that defined the way we ate. Cereal or English muffin for breakfast, lunch delivered in, takeout many nights for dinner. It was ironic to me that Nate—like the Caldwells—was such a foodie, and yet he didn’t like to cook.

Maybe he didn’t like my cooking, I think. Maybe what I made was just too homey and old-school.

My grandma loved to bake. She sold her own pies and cakes at their grocery in Chicago, and customers begged her for the recipes, but she’d never share them.

“They’re like family,” she told me.

My mom and dad loved to cook, too. They made what they termed “big, lake breakfasts,” which were really brunches centered around my dad’s blueberry pancakes or my mom’s Belgian waffles and Cap’n Crunch French toast. They made their own jams and jellies—strawberry, blackberry, red raspberry, apricot—so even my PB&Js were downright haute cuisine.

I cover the two casseroles with plastic wrap and slide them into the refrigerator, before washing the rhubarb, drying it in a dish towel and placing it on the cutting board, where I chop it into small pieces. An errant piece falls to the floor, and Sonny hurriedly scoops it up, turns it around in his mouth, before spitting it out directly at my feet and shooting me a dirty look.

“Tastes better in a coffee cake with lots of sugar,” I tell him.

I pull out cinnamon, flour, sugar and brown sugar, all while referring to the recipe card for my grandma’s rhubarb sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel topping.

“Oleo,” I laugh, reading the old-school name for the margarine she once used. “Butter’s back, Grandma,” I say, pulling it from the refrigerator.

Though the only thing I used to make was reservations, as Trish joked, and despite the fact I’m juggling all new recipes on my very first morning turning out breakfast for guests, I am not nervous. In fact, I am calm. As I mix ingredients, there is a stunning peace to waking at dawn and cooking, a rhythm to the routine, a great satisfaction in what I’m creating.