Diana Wallace and her dad, Chef Tom Coohill of Coohills
Me and my dad, Chef Tom Coohill, at Coohills in Denver

From our family’s table

Chef Tom Coohill, and the kitchen I grew up in

My father, Chef Tom Coohill, is a French-trained chef who has spent his life in restaurant kitchens. He trained under master chefs at the Michelin three-star L’Oustau de Baumanière in France, the Mobil five-star Le Français in Illinois, and Ma Maison in Los Angeles.

In 1992 he opened Ciboulette in Atlanta, a modern French restaurant ranked in the top 10 by Condé Nast and the top 25 by Esquire. He also opened Coohill’s steakhouse in Atlanta. Today he and my mother, Diane, run Coohills, their French-inspired restaurant at 1400 Wewatta Street in Denver’s LoDo neighborhood.

He has cooked as a guest chef at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic and Telluride Food + Vine, and won Best Appetizer at Denver’s Beaujolais & Beyond in 2015.

At home, though, he cooked elementally: fresh produce, olive oil, salt, pepper, heat, and restraint. My parents met in culinary school, and food became our family language. This site is that language, made to fit a weeknight with three kids under three.

“The kitchen was a stage, where even lentils could dance.” — What my father taught me

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About Back to Earth Cooking
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The Story

Back to Earth Cooking began as a return to the kitchen — to cooking as something more than routine.

Real. Warm. Deeply yours.

The cookbook follows the seasons — because that's how food actually works. You cook what the season gives you, and you stop fighting the calendar.

The deepest influences are family ones: my father's recipes, my mother's recipes, and the heirloom family recipes carried through our kitchens. Blue Zones longevity and Moosewood heartiness are part of the language too, but the root is home — food taught, remembered, adapted, and handed forward.

Diana's daughters peeling garlic in the kitchen

The kitchen tradition being handed down: real food, small hands, garlic skins, and learning by doing.

Diana with her horse on a farm lane

Back to earth has always meant staying close to the land, the animals, the seasons, and the work of home.

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For my father,
who taught me that the kitchen was a stage,
where even lentils could dance,
and where Fleetwood Mac was a sacred spice.

For my mother,
who turned flour and fire into devotion,
who never let us eat from a box when a pot could sing,
who taught me that homemade isn't a trend — it's a promise.

For my daughters,
who inherit the flame, the rhythm, and the flame.

And for my husband,
who made this cookbook possible.

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