"Dinner is 100 percent cell-phone free. It’s the one moment we can all connect".
— Alison Cayne
A black Lacanche stove is a clear centerpiece of the kitchen. The walls are covered in a bricklike subway tile, framed by dark grout.
From dawn until bedtime, life really revolves around the kitchen. For the space Alison chose marble countertops and gray-blue cabinets, finished off with classic brass bin pulls. Most mornings Alison does short-order cooking for breakfast, coffee in hand. One daughter loves avocado toast, while another always wants eggs, and everyone eats on the stools along the kitchen island. She does the school drop-off before heading to work. “There are mornings where I think of myself as like Mother Nature, like I should be on Oprah,” says Alison. ” And then other mornings I think, I should never talk about how to parent, ever!” She gets a second cup of coffee — her own special blend of La Colombe — on arrival at Haven’s Kitchen.
When asked why she landed on “Haven’s Kitchen,” Alison says, “My impression of the kitchen was always the hearth, the happy place, the yummy smells, where friends and family gather. But I realized people had so much fear, about what to cook for their kids, about recipes not working, about nutrition. I wanted to bring back that concept that the kitchen should be the haven.”
