House of Hours is where I cook — the Indian food I grew up on, pizza I make the dough for, whatever I'm curious about that week — in a home I put together myself. My day job is in product management, which mostly means working out where people give up on something — and that's how I approach the cooking and the house too: I make things the long way enough times to know which part is worth the effort. Everything here has a longer version in the newsletter — the amounts, the mistakes, and what I'd do differently.
My mom made the best fish curry when I was growing up, and I never once made it myself — too long, too complicated, and I knew I'd get it wrong. Then I opened a jar of Gymkhana's goan coconut curry and it tasted like hers. I wasn't expecting that from a jar.
I always make the dough from scratch, but I wasn't spending an hour on butter masala for a pizza I didn't know would work. So the sauce came out of a Gymkhana jar, and then a lot of jalapeños — it's rich, and it needs something sharp next to it.
Biryani is the recipe people abandon halfway, and it's almost always the gravy — an hour in before the rice has even started. So that's the one part I bought; the layering and the fried onions still happen the long way, because that part's actually fun. It's the recipe that started my newsletter.
Twenty minutes, and it looks like it took the whole afternoon. The marinade sits in the fridge doing the work all day — the only part you have to pay attention to is the pan.
newsletter
Tomato pie — a really good jar of tomatoes, fresh garlic, fresh basil and a lot of good olive oil, on dough I make from scratch. Written out with amounts, which is the version people actually cook from.
with products
"Every recipe has one step where people put the spoon down. I've made these enough times to know exactly which step it is — so that's the only one I let a product touch."
The product isn't an ad read. It's the answer to the step people actually give up on — so it earns its place in the recipe instead of interrupting it.
"Everything I've featured so far, I bought myself — and I tell my audience that. If that ever changes, they'll know."
together looks like
30–60 seconds, my voice over the cooking, the product named once, where it actually belongs in the recipe.
A spoken open — eight seconds, the one thing worth knowing — then the music comes up and the process plays out. It ends where it started, so people watch it twice.
No talking. Process shots cut to music, with clean screen time on the label.
The full recipe on Substack, product named as printed on the label, with the method written out.
Everything lives on TikTok, Instagram, and in the newsletter — three surfaces per dish. I work in product for a living, so briefs, deadlines, and feedback rounds are familiar territory.
What I like is finding the thing that takes a hard step out and actually works, then telling people about it. If that's what you make, I'd like to hear from you.
houseofhoursco@gmail.com