ABOUT ME
I’m Robyn. I live at 9,600 feet elevation in Breckenridge, Colorado with my tasting team (aka husband David and teenage son Jacob). I’m the chief recipe developer, photographer, writer, and burnt pan-washer for Butter and Air. Cooking is my creative outlet, and any skills I’ve developed come not from culinary school but from a lifetime of finding yummy-looking things in newspapers, magazines, restaurants, and the internet, and being curious enough to try making them at home.
My higgledy-piggledy career has included stints as a bowling alley cook, restaurant bus girl, preschool teacher, travel guide writer, admin assistant, newspaper reporter, advertising lackey, marketing director, non-profit fund-raiser, and freelance editor. This seemed like a logical next step.
I also love to trail run and practice yoga.
I may drop an occasional f-bomb, but only if it’s really warranted.
ABOUT BUTTER AND AIR
I started this blog because I love to cook, I love to write, and because I wanted to provide a high-quality resource for high-altitude cooking. High-altitude cooking involves more than adjusting recipes for baked goods; it’s knowing (among other things) that water boils at a lower temperature, that you can’t always find unusual ingredients in our remote grocery stores, and that souffles are a true holy grail. However, many of the recipes I make are minimally affected, or altogether unaffected, by elevation. So while you’ll find recipes for cookies, cakes, and breads that have been tweaked for us mountain people, you’ll also find lots of things that anybody, anywhere can make.
FOOD PHILOSOPHY
Yep, I’ve got one. I think food – at least the food that I cook in my own home – should be real, tasty, and unfussy.
By “real” I mean whole foods. I like to cook from scratch so that I know exactly what’s going into my recipes. I rarely use pre-processed ingredients with preservatives and artificial flavorings. I feel best, physically speaking, when I’m eating “clean” which for me means small-to-moderate amounts of sugar, wheat, and alcohol. Lest that make me sound priggish about food, let me assure you that I am the first to admit to accidentally eating five cookies when I really meant to have just one, and calling popcorn and wine dinner when I don’t feel like cooking.
Also, the focus of this blog is in part on high altitude recipes, which means plenty of wheat and sugar-laden baking (to wit: our first recipe is an ooey, gooey, buttery chocolate chip cookie, which everyone needs in their repertoire).
Bottom line: although I think it’s important to be mindful about choices, I don’t believe guilt should be associated with food. Food is to be enjoyed. Balance the cookies with some steamed broccoli, and it’ll all be ok.
I do draw the line at hipster-y food trends, so I won’t be featuring unicorn cupcakes, smoothie bowls, or sushi burritos. Also, no cilantro. It tastes like soap to me, so I don’t cook with it.
CONTACT
Got a question? Complaint? Compliment? Drop me a note.