New England Mobile Book Fair
Patti, if you ever come up to Boston, we will have to pay a visit to the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton Highlands. I have lived in the Boston area for going on ten years, and I'm ashamed to admit -- this was my first visit to this amazing place, although I'd heard about it for years.
Deb, on the other hand, please stop reading now or make plans to visit the states soon.
It's basically a nondescript wooden warehouse filled with new and remaindered books. Huge. As in I didn't even have time to explore vast sections of this place.
Why I went today: it was kind of a gray, ugly day. We'd woken up late, and as I was languidly surfing through the Jessica's Biscuit web site, I found out the Book Fair was affiliated. Why, thought I, they must have cookbooks! So off we went. (I was heartened when, upon leaving, I told DH where we were going and he replied rather brightly, "Oh, good!" I immediately translated that into, "Buy as many cookbooks as you like.")
Oliver's a smart kid, so the minute he stepped into the place and smelled paper, he started whining. But then we found some little stepstools, and he amused himself by pretending he was a clerk, describing the books for imaginary customers. ("All the books are different. This book has a picture of a banana. Would you like a banana book? It's down aisle 5-2.")
I was good. Very good. I had picked out ten books, but I narrowed it down to six by the time we hit the register. Two were 20 percent of list price; the others were 50 to 70 percent off. Everything currently out and "hot" was 40 percent off -- like the Foster's Market Cookbook and mammoth Gourmet Cookbook. What I purchased:
*Edna Lewis's Taste of Country Cooking, to feed my southern/soul food cookbook addiction;
*The Blue Ribbon Country Cookbook by Diane Roupe, containing over 1,000 recipes for good ol' American cooking, some recipes of which are state fair blue ribbon winners;
*Lindy Wildsmith's Preserves, an import from the U.K. with recipes for things like shrubs and limoncello. Could not pass up;
*Iced Tea by Fred Thompson. Purely market research for my own book proposal on summer drinks. Besides, it was only $5.98;
*And last, the prize: A copy of Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno's Bread. Many reasons why I simply had to possess this book. First off, Treuille's affiliated with one of my favorite bookshops in the world, Books for Cooks, located in London. I also see the book referred to a lot by other food writers. And it's a Dorling-Kindersley book, which means lots of lovely pictures to slobber over.
That's five books, not six. Right. I ended up not buying one at the register when they had to look up the price -- it was $19, but considering they'd rung up everything else and I was having severe sticker shock, I passed. Such admirable self restraint.
Right now, I have a starter going on the table for the ciabatta recipe. I am determined this fall to bake the perfect ciabatta loaf. I think with this book for reference, I'm off to a good start.
My only criticism of the bookshop: the books are filed by title, not author's last name. I was trying to find books by Jane Grigson, for example, so I'd have to go over to the veggie section, then back to International/British, then poke around the general area. Then I couldn't remember the name of a book written by French jam-maker Christine Ferber, so again, more fruitless looking.
I'm already having fantasies about dropping Oliver off at school in September and heading down there with my credit card ....
Deb, on the other hand, please stop reading now or make plans to visit the states soon.
It's basically a nondescript wooden warehouse filled with new and remaindered books. Huge. As in I didn't even have time to explore vast sections of this place.
Why I went today: it was kind of a gray, ugly day. We'd woken up late, and as I was languidly surfing through the Jessica's Biscuit web site, I found out the Book Fair was affiliated. Why, thought I, they must have cookbooks! So off we went. (I was heartened when, upon leaving, I told DH where we were going and he replied rather brightly, "Oh, good!" I immediately translated that into, "Buy as many cookbooks as you like.")
Oliver's a smart kid, so the minute he stepped into the place and smelled paper, he started whining. But then we found some little stepstools, and he amused himself by pretending he was a clerk, describing the books for imaginary customers. ("All the books are different. This book has a picture of a banana. Would you like a banana book? It's down aisle 5-2.")
I was good. Very good. I had picked out ten books, but I narrowed it down to six by the time we hit the register. Two were 20 percent of list price; the others were 50 to 70 percent off. Everything currently out and "hot" was 40 percent off -- like the Foster's Market Cookbook and mammoth Gourmet Cookbook. What I purchased:
*Edna Lewis's Taste of Country Cooking, to feed my southern/soul food cookbook addiction;
*The Blue Ribbon Country Cookbook by Diane Roupe, containing over 1,000 recipes for good ol' American cooking, some recipes of which are state fair blue ribbon winners;
*Lindy Wildsmith's Preserves, an import from the U.K. with recipes for things like shrubs and limoncello. Could not pass up;
*Iced Tea by Fred Thompson. Purely market research for my own book proposal on summer drinks. Besides, it was only $5.98;
*And last, the prize: A copy of Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno's Bread. Many reasons why I simply had to possess this book. First off, Treuille's affiliated with one of my favorite bookshops in the world, Books for Cooks, located in London. I also see the book referred to a lot by other food writers. And it's a Dorling-Kindersley book, which means lots of lovely pictures to slobber over.
That's five books, not six. Right. I ended up not buying one at the register when they had to look up the price -- it was $19, but considering they'd rung up everything else and I was having severe sticker shock, I passed. Such admirable self restraint.
Right now, I have a starter going on the table for the ciabatta recipe. I am determined this fall to bake the perfect ciabatta loaf. I think with this book for reference, I'm off to a good start.
My only criticism of the bookshop: the books are filed by title, not author's last name. I was trying to find books by Jane Grigson, for example, so I'd have to go over to the veggie section, then back to International/British, then poke around the general area. Then I couldn't remember the name of a book written by French jam-maker Christine Ferber, so again, more fruitless looking.
I'm already having fantasies about dropping Oliver off at school in September and heading down there with my credit card ....
posted by Unknown at 1:07 AM
3 Comments:
ooh, I'm drooling...a warehouse full of books sounds like my idea of a fun day!! And I love Jessica's Biscuit. I usually place a big order for gifts around Christmas time. I really need to go through my cookbooks and discard what I don't need-- so I can make room for more!
Patti, I suggest you do your weeding in the next couple months so that you can come up here before Christmas. Really, it's insane -- the place is crack for cooks.
Di, sounds like a plan to me! I'm thinking about going to the Nieman conference. Maybe we could make a weekend of it!
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