Your Grilled Cheese Needs Toum

Credit…David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist:Simon Andrews.

Good morning. I’m embracing nostalgia today, luxuriating in memories of a Brooklyn I never experienced, even though I’m borough-raised. Imagine egg creams at the soda fountain, a long trip on the rattan seats of an old-timey subway car, then the mechanical horse races at Coney Island and a visit to Ebinger’s afterward, for blackout cake. See me in my peaky newsboy hat!

And for dinner beforehand, maybe Chinese roast pork on garlic bread? Steamed hot dogs with mustard and relish? I don’t know. Maybe just a wedge salad will suffice. I’ll get my protein from the big glass of milk I’ll drink with the cake.

For Ham El-Waylly, nostalgia is a grilled cheese sandwich slathered with toum (above), a sauce made by combining garlic, lemon juice, salt and oil. The mixture is one that recalls the akkawi cheese manakeesh sandwiches he used to consume as a teenager in Doha, Qatar. The toum packs a wallop, as if you’d stuffed garlic bread with Muenster. So good.

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Toum Grilled Cheese

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That’s Sunday sorted. As for the rest of the week. …

Monday

Jorim is a Korean dish of beef braised with ginger- and garlic-spiked soy sauce. Kay Chun’s recipe replaces the beef with tofu and mushrooms, which absorb the flavorful sauce beautifully. Make extra, so you can have the leftovers cold for lunch.