a restaurant chef learns home cooking

Chef Ham El-Waylly grew up around food. His father is from Egypt and his mother from Bolivia, and he was raised in Qatar. He came to America on his own when he was 19 and became a restaurant chef. He spent years on the lines of busy, respected restaurants, but he never wanted to cook at home. And then Covid hit, and he realized he didn’t know how to cook at home. He could make soup for 100 or craft a tweezer-perfected plate that he cooked in a pound of butter, but two make a simple dinner for two? That he didn’t know how to do.

But when the restaurants all shuttered and he was stuck at home, he decided to take the recipes his mother had left him and figure out how to cook the food of his childhood. And in revisiting the food he grew up with, he learned how to cook in a home kitchen. Hello, Home Cooking is his blend of professional kitchen expertise mixed with big flavors for home cooks. And this is packed with information.

There are about 100 recipes, from breakfasts to snacks to veggies, meats, pasta, and desserts. And in one of the smartest moves I think I’ve ever seen in a cookbook, each chapter page lists not only the dishes in that chapter, but it has a photo of each dish, right there at the start of the chapter. You can see at a glance what all the desserts look like, to help you decide if you want to make the Spiced Applesauce Bundt, Kinda Ice Box Cake of Canned Peaches, Glossy Chocolate Chunk Cookies, or Labneh-Cherry Cheesecake.

And then there are the pockets of deep information. With the breakfast chapter is a section on how to make eggs. But it’s how to make eggs 12 different ways, with instructions and photos of each type. There is a chart of vegetables from tender to hearty with instructions on how to cook them all. There is a chart on How to Salad. There is a recipe for Mom’s Perfect Pot of Rice. There is a Beef Chart, describing all the different cuts of beef and how to use them as well as instructions on how to buy and store fish.

The recipes vary from Crispy Fried Fish Tacos and Chicken and Rice to a Brazilian Hot Dog Party or a Roasted Chicken Dinner. There is Ham and Cheese Lasagna, Chicken and (Mochi) Dumplings, or Spaetzle and Cheese. Veggie lovers can try the Broccoli and Chamomile Soup, Kale Pesto Pasta, Roasted Eggplant with Chickpeas and Yogurt, or Warm Button Mushrooms and Radishes. And for breakfast, there are Masa Waffles, Maple Glazed Basturma Bacon, Date and Banana Smoothie, or Blueberry Muffins Inspired by Costco.

Throughout the cookbook are photos. Besides the pictures at the start of each chapter, there are photos with just about every recipe, and sometimes extra photos to show how to do something, like how to make the gnocchi in the Parisian Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Crispy Sage. And there is information throughout, so you have the wisdom of a professional chef to help you along each step, from choosing a knife to reading a recipe to kneading dough.

I love how El-Waylly encourages readers to start where they are and make their own way in the kitchen. The recipes don’t come with times for the overall prep, because he doesn’t presume to know how long it takes you to chop the vegetables or gather the ingredients. He encourages readers to start where they are and make mistakes. He calls mistakes the most significant part of cooking because of what they teach us in the kitchen. Hello, Home Cooking offers a fresh perspective on cooking for the family, and I think that people who are tired of being told to cook the same old way will find that this is new and refreshing. It’s smart, sensible, and personal.

Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of Hello, Home Cooking, with many thanks, but the opinions are my own.