A Cook’s Library

When Ellen Rose opened the Cook’s Library, a store devoted to cookbooks, in April of 1989, it was the only store of its kind in L.A.; five years later that’s still the case. Similar stores are turning up--you can find them in New York, Oregon and Toronto--but Rose continues to corner the market in Los Angeles.

Having monitored L.A.’s eating habits for five years, Rose reports, “I talk to Nach Waxman who owns Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York all the time, and there’s a dramatic difference in what we sell. The biggest difference between the two coasts is that the West is much more health conscious. I have dozens of diet and health books, and vegetarian cooking is huge and growing--probably because young people are choosing not to eat meat at a very early age. I’ve also noticed an increasing number of vegans--vegetarians who eat no meat or dairy products at all--but the publishing world hasn’t caught up with this trend yet. There are only a few vegan cookbooks out, but they sell like crazy.

“Because of the emphasis on health, I think many people enjoy food a lot less,” she adds. “They don’t understand that if you do things in moderation you don’t have to cut out everything, so they just go without. I have customers who buy cookbooks and take them to bed and read them, but wouldn’t dream of cooking from them.” Rose estimates there are about 4,000 cookbooks currently in print, and says her store carries about 2,700 titles. “When I first opened there were gobs of cookbooks coming out, but the publishing industry got scared by the recession, and by last year there wasn’t much of a choice. This year feels like 1989 again--there are lots of new cookbooks this year.”

It’s surprising that the recession led to a decrease in the publication of cookbooks, as one of the repercussions of the dip in the economy was a move away from restaurant dining in favor of entertaining in the home. “The recession was good for me because the trend is to the home,” says Rose. “The economy started it by pushing people back in, then they discovered they prefer socializing at home.”

As to her criteria in selecting her stock, Rose says she’s willing to look at anything. “I have some self-published books that are fabulous, many of which are imports. There are two out of England--Margaret Shaida’s ‘The Legendary Cuisine of Persia,’ and Mavis Hyman’s ‘Indian-Jewish Cooking’--that are great, and a wonderful cake book from Ohio that’s full of old-fashioned cake recipes. I have an entire section devoted to community cookbooks, and some of them are fantastic--there’s a terrific one from the 50s that came out of Charleston that’s the most authentic Southern cookbook of that era I’ve ever seen.

“I try not to carry books that rely on processed foods, but I’ve never had to pass on a cookbook because the ingredients it requires were unavailable in L.A. You can get ingredients for just about any cuisine here now,” adds Rose, who along with her staff of three, tests as many recipes as possible. “Some things you have to get by mail order, but we have books on that too. The weirdest book in the store is Calvin W. Schwabe’s ‘Unmentionable Cuisine,’ which tells you how to prepare things most people wouldn’t dream of eating, and the most expensive book we’ve ever stocked was Salvador Dali’s cookbook--we had a first edition that sold for $225. This year the imported books from France and England are my most expensive titles, but they’re also the books that make the store unique. Most of my cookbooks can be found in other stores, but you can’t get these anywhere else.

“As to what the hippest food is right now, we just had a run on our Afghan cookbook, ‘Afghan Food and Cookery’ by Helen Saberi, and this is the year of deserts. French cookbooks are the poorest sellers because that cuisine is so high in fat. I wish more people were interested in cooking it, because it has the most depth and is the basis of most of food.”

The Cook’s Library located at 8373 W. 3rd St. is open Monday from 1-5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday 11-6 p.m. Call (213) 655-3141 for holiday hours or for additional information.