Pot Boilers
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday April 13, 2004
A bookshop dedicated to all things culinary
If you own between five and 10 cookery books, you're a keen home cook. If you find yourself buying bookshelves to carry your food books then you're ready for The Cookery Book.
Shelf clambered up the stairs of this, the only specialist cookery and food bookshop in Sydney, situated above the equally specialist Boat Books, to sniff out what is in stock.
Both shops were started more than 20 years ago by John Ivimey who subsequently sold Boat Books and more recently handed management of The Cookery Book over to former publisher Peter Chesher.
At the top of the stairs and outside the shop proper are a couple of shelves of bargains, often useless items; total flops and last year's restaurant guides. But occasionally, you'll find a really good book at a low price. It's worth a browse.
Once inside, the addicted collector will (like Shelf) be sent into an acquisitive frenzy. We want them all. At any given time, there are more than 2000 titles to choose from, so it would be an expensive exercise.
Right in front of you are shelves of new titles, today rather thin. During the book release seasons Christmas, Mother's Day and so on there could be up to 60 jostling for your attention. Behind the new titles are shelves groaning under weighty tomes on the art, history and literature of food. Our favourite title from this section is What Einstein Told His Chef: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke. To your left are the professional shelves. If you're not in the restaurant business and you head for these, you're incurable. We love them. Here, you'll find the new edition of the foodie bible, Larousse Gastronomique , a hard-back Escoffier ``modernised for the American kitchen" and the classic Repertoire de la Cuisine , first published in 1914. There's also a shelf packed with how-to books for budding restaurateurs.
Move into the depths and you start eating your way around the world. Along the back wall is an eclectic collection of European, Middle Eastern, Australian and New Zealand titles. This is where you go for Dennis B. Valcich's Classic Croatian Cookbook , or Claudia Roden's superb Book of Jewish Food , or Stephanie Alexander's Cooking & Travelling in South-West France.
There's a particularly strong Italian section and, for knob twiddlers, every TV chef book you could hope for, then books on entertaining, barbecue, dairy, appliances you could spend half a day browsing and not even make a dent.
The best thing about The Cookery Book, however, is that, because it's primarily a wholesaler, it's not crowded. The day we were there, only one other person came in (looking for the books listed in Good Living's top 10 last year), so you have the attention of the expert staff.
Come for the out of stock, out of the way and out of sight or even Jamie Oliver and Donna Hay.
The Cookery Book
31 ALBANY STREET, CROWS NEST.
TEL: 9439 3144, www.cookerybook.com.au
Open Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm, Sat 10am-2pm.
Best buys
The Essentials of Classic Italian Cookery by Marcella Hazan, $50 , New Penguin Cookery by Jill Norman , $69.95 , Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky , $59.95.
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald
