Today's post is short and sweet, but I do mean sweet.
Two weeks ago, Omnivore Books on Food quietly opened its doors in Noe Valley. When I found out about it from a friend of mine who is much hipper than I am, I nearly wet myself with joy. I have been known to lose myself in used bookstores for hours, but I have never been to one dealing exclusively in cookbooks.
Housed, appropriately enough, in a former butcher shop, Omnivore is the dream child of Celia Sack, an antiquarian book dealer with a special passion for cookbooks. Even her name sounds as though it came straight from a novel. Celia Sack. It is, to me, a name that should be attached to a book store.
Omnivore's fare reaches beyond new, antiquarian, and collectible cookbooks. As its website states, "Omnivore connects the past to the present by offering centuries of knowledge on growing, raising, and cooking food." There are books on animal husbandry, nut growing, even a whole shelf devoted to organic farming-- from the 1940's and 1950's. It's a fascinating browse-- a kind of hog heaven for book lovers.
Among my favorite curiosities on the store were a collection of miniature liqueur bottles once owned by Hal B. Wallis, Oscar-winning producer of a little-known film entitled Casablanca. They were rescued by Sack (a friend of the family) when Wallis' gold-digging last wife was stealing him, well, blind, as his eyesight began to fail.