Recipes that were never written down for strangers.

Two families, the same cake.

The honey cake is our grandmother's — our father's mother, who baked it in central Ukraine for birthdays and for the holidays. It was the cake that meant people were coming. It is the same one we bake now: thin honey layers, a light vanilla custard cream, left to settle overnight so the layers soften into each other. You cannot rush that part, and we don't.

Our great-grandmother on our mother's side baked the same cake, in a different house, for the same holidays. Neither of them learned it from the other. That is the kind of cake this is — not a family secret, but the thing a Ukrainian holiday table was supposed to have on it, and both sides of this family happened to be right about which one. Both of those kitchens were a long way from Oakville. We would rather share what came out of them than keep it.

The rest came from the same table: syrnyk, khrustyky, the things that were simply always there. They are made here the way they were made at home, which mostly means doing the slow steps properly rather than finding a way around them.

Nothing is baked in advance and kept. Everything is made for the date you pick, with real butter, real cream and no preservatives — which is also why it keeps for days rather than weeks, and why we would rather tell you that plainly than not mention it.