Maybe you’re a cookbook collector searching for an obscure 19th-century cookbook, or you just have to have that new coffee-table cookbook from Italy. No matter what your cookbook needs may be, there are sources where you can find exactly what you’re looking for. What are these sources? They’re every food lovers’ dream. They’re cookbook stores.
Most bookstores today may have an ever-increasing section of their store devoted to cookbooks, but just imagine walking into a bookstore that has nothing but cookbooks and books about food and wine on its shelves. The three shops mentioned here are actual brick-and-mortar stores you can walk into but each also has an online presence so you can browse some of their selections from the comfort of your home, and you also have a way to contact the stores to ask whether or not they have the one cookbook you simply can’t live without.
Kitchen Arts & Letters
The first store is also the oldest. Kitchen Arts & Letters is located on Lexington Avenue in New York City and boasts an 11,000-plus inventory, all on cooking, food and wine. The store owner, Nach Waxman or manager Matt Sartwell are happy to find older books for you, or, if you’re in the neighborhood, you can walk in and browse the shelves yourself. Chances are they’ll have the book already, but if not, just tell them what you need and leave the searching up to them.
One of the best ways to learn about new cookbooks on the market – or coming onto the market – is to sign up for Kitchen Arts’ free e-mail newsletter which will arrive in your in-box two or three times a year. There you will find all the new titles arriving in the shop that season. You may be able to find these cookbooks at other bookstores, but don’t count on it. Kitchen Arts & Letters carries the crème de la crème of cookbooks. This is where you can find Ferran Adria’s A Day at El Bulli; British chef Jason Atherton’s Maze, based on the fare at Atherton’s award-winning London restaurant; and Scott Beattie’s Artisinal Cocktails, showcasing the ingenious cocktail creations Beattie developed as the bar manager at Cyrus, a restaurant in Sonoma County. This is also where to turn if you’re looking for Heston Blumenthan’s The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.
Kitchen Arts & Letters is where a lot of serious chefs, cooks, and food scholars shop. But don’t let that scare you. The shop is happy to help enthusiastic home cooks and food lovers of all kinds.
The Cooks' Library
The second store for cookbook lovers is The Cook’s Library on W. Third Street in Los Angeles. This store, founded by Ellen Rose 18 years ago, has about 8,000 cookbooks in its inventory – including rare, out-of-print, foreign and self-published. It also features best selling cookbooks, of course. Stop by for a copy of Jim Denevan and Marah Stets cookbook, Outstanding in the Field, for example. It’s one of this year’s best farm-to-table books featuring plenty of fresh vegetable recipes. Or pick up Marcella Hazan’s new memoir Amacord. At 84 years, Hazan knows everything there is to know about her native Italian cooking. If you want a book to cook through and blog about, her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking would be the book to choose.
The Web site features recipes from some of the cookbooks, staff picks (in case cooks can’t make up their own minds about what cookbooks they want), and author signings are a constant here so if you’re looking for autographed copies, chances are they’ll have one here. The Cook’s Library also offers a Library Building Consulting Service for professional chefs as well as ordinary food lovers. If they can’t help build a first-rate personal cookbook collection, then no one can.
Rabelais
Finally, check out Rabelais a cookbook store located in Portland, Maine and owned by the husband-and-wife team of Don Lindgren and Samantha Hoyt Lindgren. He was a rare book dealer before opening Rabelais. His wife is a pastry chef. That’s why here, more than anywhere, the inventory includes old and rare books dating back to the 18th century, mixing easily with new and esoteric books, including many that have to do with baking. In addition to food and wine books, Rabelais also carries books that deal with farm and garden, including Bacon Pigs in Canada and North American Apple: Varieties, Rootstock, Outlook. What you will not find here are cookbooks by celebrities and celebrity chefs. These are serious books – and there are thousands of them. A Taste of Place, A Cultural Journey into Terroir by Amy Trubek is an example of the kind of title found here. This is also the place to look for a copy of Molecular Gastronomy by Herve This, or The English Medieval Feast by William Edward Mead. Rabelais has just released its first catalog. It’s downloadable from its Web site. While on the site, cooks and food lovers should check out the blog Don Lingren writes. It’s funny, thoughtful, imaginative, and informative and gives just a taste of how active a role Rabelais plays in Portland’s food community.
There are other cookbook stores, of course, but these three may be the most well-known and most complete in terms of inventory and the uniqueness of the books they offer. Check them out soon. Food lovers sure to find something that’s completely delightful -- a book they never knew existed. And that surprise element is half the fun of a bookstore dedicated to cooks.
 |
