Matt Hranek on 'A Man & His Kitchen' and Creating High-low Meals at Home

Matt Hranek and his new book, "A Man & His Kitchen" — Matt Hranek and his new book, "A Man & His Kitchen." Courtesy of Artisan

Matt Hranek is no stranger to a good meal.

A quick scroll through his Instagram page or flip through the magazine he founded and edits, WM Brown, will reveal evidence of many caviar-topped, negroni-fueled stops throughout Europe, New York and beyond.

But just the same, the editor has a soft spot for the cooking of the big, Italian, family he grew up with in upstate New York, influenced by his uncle’s bar and red sauce joint or his aunt’s diner.

Both sides are explored in his newest book, “A Man & His Kitchen,” out now. It includes a both recipes and entertaining inspiration for the discerning home cook.

“The book was something that was started as a journal, and I am not a journaler, but I finally was like, ‘I should just start writing this stuff down — am I going to always remember these recipes of my aunts and uncles and my mom, and what am I leaving behind?’” Hranek says over Zoom from the Roman apartment he and his wife, travel editor Yolanda Edwards, have rented for the past 18 months.

Inspiration came from both his mother’s index card-filled recipe box, as well as the years of entertaining and cooking he and Edwards have done at their farm, William Brown Farm.

“It was my most zen place, leaving a cramped apartment from New York, getting up to this place where I really built a house around a kitchen. And we have, of course, great product up there, and there’s wild foods there. And it just seemed like that was the nucleus of all these ideas,” Hranek says. “And also the idea of entertaining: I grew up in this Martha Stewart world: I worked with Martha as a photographer, and she deeply influenced how I looked at food and entertainment. And I wanted to kind of put my spin on that, because we do think about it. You are making hot dogs in curried relish, but sometimes you do want to put on black tie and open up a bottle of Champagne, the absurdity of all of that. We could be eating off paper plates and solo cups, but I really felt like the celebration of food for me was also the action of the event, how it was presented, how you brought it to the table for people.”

"A Man & His Kitchen" — “A Man & His Kitchen”

Hranek’s devoted Instagram followers might be surprised to learn there are only a couple steak recipes in the book, as he is often posting grilling shots. Yet while making an edit of recipes, he was surprised to find several he loved that were based on fish or pantry items.

“I think a necessity of that is you’d get up to the farm and sometimes you didn’t shop or you got there late. But this idea of, there were some tinned anchovies I brought back from Spain that are sitting up there and there’s always some great pasta, or there’s some risotto rice, those kind of quick pantry meals,” he says. They also reminded him of the simplicity of what he grew up eating.

“Hot dogs and chicken wings, as much as there’s been a tin or two of Petrossian caviar or trout roe or whatever, it’s very much who I am and where I came from,” he says. “Now what I do is when I make these things, it’s just the most elevated ingredients that make them. So I’m buying local organic chickens now. Emotionally, it’s a lot of food that always has made me happy. And I felt it was important to include that.”

On the entertaining side, many nights at their farm have included a high-low meal consumed in the very finest of clothes.

“I do think the way, almost a ridiculous way, we kind of wove in the style element of how do you always create the party, even if you’re in this ridiculous place in the middle of nowhere?” he says. “Of course, you could eat all these meals barefoot with cutoff jeans. But it’s nice to put on an old beater tuxedo you don’t mind getting sausage grease on. It just changes the experience a little bit.”