“The kitchen is all I care about in a house. It’s the heart of our home,” says haileecatalano, a professional chef-turned-food content creator, whose feed features delightful videos of her breaking down cozy, accessible home-cooked meals. So when she and her partner chuckcruz—also a trained chef with a social following—serendipitously stumbled on a 1954 ranch-style home in New Jersey with two functioning kitchens, one on the ground floor and one in the basement, they took it as a sign. “This house reminds me of my grandma’s house, who had a kitchen in her basement too. She’s Sicilian, this family [who lived here before us] was also Italian, and a lot of Italian homes had a second kitchen,” Hailee says. It just felt right. The couple’s ensuing renovation of the home turned out to be a full family affair: Chuck’s father was their contractor and his sister handled the interior design, while his brother-in-law helped with the build. In By Heart, Hailee’s debut cookbook, the chef writes tha...