Browsers’ Nook
Bestsmellers in London
PANKAJA SRINIVASAN
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It is easily one of the best spots in London. Books for Cooks is like Alladin’s cave, a treasure trove of recipe books with a gem of a café attached.
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Each day, three books are picked from the book store and a recipe from each is tried out and served to visitors. A delightful idea that has people streaming in for more.
Photo: Pankaja Srinivasan
Heady Combination:Books for Cooks
Something about the marriage of books and food is so wonderful. And, Heidi Lascelles must have thought so too, going by this darling of a shop she established in 1983.
It is called Books for Cooks and it is my first port of call in London. Walking from Notting Hill Gate, via Portobello Road (where “Notting Hill” was shot), I keep an eye out for Hugh Grant . On the way, we spot something written on a blue roundel on one of the row houses. “George Orwell lived here”, it says, “in 1927”. Wow.
We pass antique shops, fruit and bread stalls, several of them selling prime specimens of pumpkin (Halloween is round the corner), and finally, there it is, sitting quaint and pretty, on Blenheim Crescent.
Open the door and you are swamped by the best smells in the world — of books and something cooking. I have seen bigger book shops, but never so many books on one subject all crowded together in the same room. Cheek by jowl, leaning against each other, tottering on piles, everywhere… And, squeezed in between is the book browser’s idea of heaven, a large, sagging sofa, nose touching distance from the book shelves. And, what books!
Literary nuggets
The cafe
I learn that Lady Maria Clutterbuck is none other than the beleaguered wife of Charles Dickens (after she bore him 10 children, Charles Dickens dumped her for a woman young enough to be his daughter). Catherine Dickens wrote a cook book under that name called What Shall We Have for Dinner? Satisfactorily Answered by Numerous Bills of Fare for from Two to Eighteen Persons. Based on that Susan M. Rossi-Wilcox has written her book called Dinner for Dickens that “investigates the domestic arrangements of the Dickens family”, lists some of the family’s favourite recipes and of course reflects the tastes of the Victorian society.
“Much was said and much was ate…” in Mansfield Park. And, there is a book called Jane Austen and Food that speaks of the references Austen makes to food in her novels and what it might have implied. As I flit from book to book (there is so much to see that the mind is boggling), to my delight I find the reference and recipe of Red Bush Tea, the favourite of my most favourite sleuth, Mma Precious Ramotswe (No1 Ladies’ Detective Agency). It is in a book called The Frugal Cook by Fiona Beckett.
A couple of funny ones catch the eye. How to Cook Children, is one such and Why Not Eat Insects is another. (I am not there long enough to find out if it is indeed a funny book or a serious one on insect recipes). I just loved the Riverford Farm Cookbook , and, if I lived in England, it would definitely grace my kitchen shelf.
Rosie Kindersley and Eric Treuille are the proprietors of Books for Cooks. Sally Hughes, who is managing the bookstore that day, tells me that all of them who work at the store are book lovers and of course love cooking too. And, the little area sectioned off at the bottom of the shop is where that love is allowed to come forth! The shop’s little café, they call it the test kitchen, has Camille Rope and Marilou Amante in a tizzy of activity. They are busy dishing out the fare for the day. Each day, three books are picked from the book store and a recipe from each is tried out and served to visitors. A delightful idea that has people streaming in for more. So popular did this little kitchen become that the Books for Cooks cooks were urged to put together and publish all the best recipes they have ever tried out. And, Favourite Recipes, Books 1 to 8 are a result of the labour of love.
Any cook book on earth you want should be there, and if it is not, they will track it down for you. And, oh yes, Books for Cooks holds regular cooking classes, too. To know more, visit www.booksforcooks.com
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Each day, three books are picked from the book store and a recipe from each is tried out and served to visitors. A delightful idea that has people streaming in for more.
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