I’m embracing nostalgia today, luxuriating in memories of a Brooklyn I never experienced, even though I’m borough-raised. And for dinner beforehand, maybe Chinese roast pork on garlic bread? 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.

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Persons: Ham Locations: Brooklyn, I’m, Coney, Ebinger’s, Doha, Qatar