My son and I spent the last few days in San Francisco, that
gastronomic paradise, because I had a couple of book readings and a
companion ticket burning a hole in my pocket. What a splendid
town for a pair of adventurous eaters! We stuffed ourselves
with tacos and dim sum and Bi-Rite ice cream, sushi and banh mi and
fine little pastries.
But one of the
non-comestible highlights of our trip had to be our visit to Omnivore
Books, in the Noe Valley district. (If you haven't had the
chance to go, be sure to put it on your list.) Housed in a single
room, Omnivore is the "clean, well-lighted place" we all seek in a
bookstore. From floor to ceiling, and on sturdy tables in the
middle of the room: cookbooks. It's a bit like the
overflowing room in most of our houses where the cookbooks live,
only cleaner (cleaner than mine, anyway) and perhaps a bit better
organized and up-to-date. At mid-day on a Saturday, customers
roamed the little room like treasure hunters.
I have this well-documented belief that
cookbooks endure as physical artifacts even in a digital world.
And I think a culinary bookstore speaks to that special
status. We see and handle cookbooks more than the other books
we own, and we have a longing to touch and handle them before we
buy them. How else are we going to know if it's going to be a
keeper? How else will we know if it's
useful, thoughtful, and new?
Well, yes, there are cookbook communities like this one, and
cookbook reviewers like me. We can offer each other guidance,
recommendations, a few tips for navigating the vast sea of
published cookbooks. And yes, it's sometimes convenient to
take those recommendations and then buy online, especially during
the holidays. But a cook's relationship with a cookbook is so
personal, so intimate, that a face-to-face introduction in a
bricks-and-mortar store is never wasted.
According to Celia Sack, Omnivore's owner, there are only eight
culinary bookstores in America. Only eight! That's not
nearly enough of these havens of tranquillity and shared interest.
Yet I suppose it's more than many other specialties can
boast; I mean, how many knitting bookstores have you heard of?
How many fishing bookstores? or gardening bookstores?
So, if you live in Portland, San Francisco, New York,
Las Vegas, Charleston, or New Orleans, consider yourself
lucky. And if you don't, and your cookbook obsession is
starting to outgrow the confines of your living space....have you
ever considered becoming a small business owner?
