Comfort food for everyone. In Hello, Home Cooking , Chef Ham El-Waylly taps into everyone’s nostalgia—his versions of beloved dishes carry a can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it heart-warming quality. These recipes work for cooks of all levels, using core flavors from different cuisines, and frees readers to mix, match, and shake up classic dishes from all around the world. From Macarona Bechamel that parallels mac ’n’ cheese, and an onion-laden pot roast that rivals any version you grew up eating, to cinnamon toast crunch made out of pita. Hello, Home Cooking shows you a whole new world of comforting classics—all while making sure you don’t need to go to a bunch of specialty stores or take out a second mortgage. Expect recipes like: Everything Pita Overnight Oats with Rose, Cherries, and Pistachios Better Than Boursin Focaccia Baladi Lazy Hummus Zucchini Poached in Yogurt Eggplant and Tofu Ragu Giardiniera Rice Bolivian Cheesy Rice Brazilian Hot Dog Party Carrot Sheet Cake With Ham’s guidance, you can make comfort meals adventurous, and brand new dishes will leave you reminiscing like you’ve had—and loved—them a hundred times. “This book has it all: expert instruction from years of fine dining experience, extraordinarily exciting and original recipes, and a style of storytelling that just makes you love Ham. Hello, Home Cooking strikes such a great balance between being fun and authoritative, and it will truly inspire you to become a better cook. I can’t wait to bring Ham’s energy and flavor into my kitchen, I’ll be starting with the overnight oats with rose, cherries, and pistachios!” —Molly Yeh, cookbook author “Culinarily speaking, I would follow Ham to the ends of the earth. His approach to food is right up my alley: delicious staples with a twist, executed with the highest levels of research and expertise. That’s why this cookbook is a game changer. He’s sharing his wisdom in such an easy and approachable way that it actually makes me want to cook. And for anyone who knows me, that’s saying A LOT. Buy this book if you know what’s good for you!” —Dan Levy, actor Ham El-Waylly is a chef, restaurant consultant, recipe developer, and video creator based in New York City. You may know him from his acclaimed Brooklyn restaurant, Strange Delight, or as a longtime contributor to NYT Cooking , where he is also one half of the YouTube sensation, Mystery Menu. He lives in the East Village with his wife (Sohla), toddler, shiba inu, English bulldog, and wild alley cat. Introduction For the longest time, I considered myself strictly a fine dining chef. I was in the phase many young cooks go through when first getting into fine dining: There is so much more to food! It must be innovative. It must be beautiful. It must be . . . art—that phase. I never cooked at home during this phase. Why would I? I had already spent up to eighteen hours a day standing over something hot, standing next to something hot, or accidentally bumping into something hot. On the rare occasion that my wife, Sohla, an equally strained chef, and I would have the same day off, we would order in or eat out. On the even rarer occasion when we were game for a home-cooked meal, it was always an event: a 3-inch dry-aged rib eye, basted in as much butter as most people eat in two weeks; a salt-baked potato, piled high with crème fraîche; and a crisp wedge salad, smothered in creamy blue cheese dressing. During this phase, a part of me even looked down on home cooking. If it wasn’t plated with tweezers, I didn’t want it. (If I made something as “simple” as a hot dog at home, you best believe that frank was brought to temperature using the thermal immersion circulator we got as a wedding gift.) Then the pandemic hit and brought the restaurant industry to an immediate halt. The indestructible New York City restaurant group I worked at closed all fifteen-ish of their stores. It was time for me to get reacquainted with home cooking. Transitioning from restaurant chef to home cook came with some unexpected struggles. I was incapable of making food for fewer than ten people. Many people struggle with guessing the right portion of pasta to cook, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about double-digit egg omelets for the two of us and enough lentil soup for the entire building. I would baste everything in butter—not just steaks. And not just a little bit of butter—my wife was horrified when she caught me basting four asparagus spears with a quarter pound of the stuff. Those buttery fun times lasted about four months, before we started getting tired of spending every second of every day coexisting in a cramped studio apartment and cooking like the apocalypse was just around the corner. It took me a long time to turn to the foods I grew up eating. I had turned off that part of my brain; I wanted to be a newer, better Ham with a blank slate ready to absorb all the culinary techniques coming my way. It was almost as if I felt like I had