The World of Cookbooks Through the Lens of Bonnie Slotnick
The Mini-Interview Series
It’s cookbook launch season! More and more come out every year.
I have an insatiable appetite for cookbooks. I call myself a cookbook kleptomaniac but my family always corrects me that it’s the wrong diagnosis. Never mind. Right now, I have severe recipe writer’s block which can only clear after I cull my current cookbook collection. The only reason I am doing it is because my bookshelves are bending and warping.
I first heard of Bonnie Slotnick (www.bonnieslotnickcookbooks.com) when a friend gifted me a cookbook of Elizabethan recipes. It came from Bonnie’s shop, a true New York icon famously known for its vintage cookbooks. One of those stops you must make when you visit the city, especially if you’re into books and old world charm.
That is not to say that after I declutter, I can simply bring all my cookbooks over to Bonnie. In fact, there have been many occasions when I wait with bated breath about which ‘discarded’ titles she will take from me to resell in her shop. Bonnie has very discerning taste about what makes a cookbook a classic - what people keep looking for, what is a well-written and reliable book, what are passing fads and what stays the length of time.
Bonnie has so kindly and generously offered up descriptive responses to my questions, adding a texture of how New York City has changed over time, and some of her most vivid moments of finding all those gems she has in her shop. I hope that you will enjoy this especially charming post. You can only conjure up a movie in your mind, of a city that is as everlasting as several of Bonnie’s books.
Before there was a bookshop, there was a publishing career. Please tell us about how your publishing job evolved into “Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks”.
My publishing career started during a period of uncertainty after I graduated from Parsons School of Design with a degree in fashion illustration (of all things!). I worked in the Parsons library for five years and, sure that a career as an artist was not in my future, thought I might become a librarian, but then woke up one day and thought “I’d like to go into cookbook publishing!”
I’d already been a cookbook collector for quite a while and knew that I loved having cookbooks around me. By some miracle I got a job almost immediately at a small book packager called Rebus. We put together books for publishers such as Time-Life. Everything was on a six-week schedule, because most of the books were mail-order series of 20 or 25 volumes. At first, as the editorial assistant, I was the fact-checker and sometime proofreader, and those deadlines could be pretty hair-raising, especially before we had computers! I had to retype pages with carbons, if anyone remembers what those were. We had a very small staff, so everybody did everything, and it was a very convivial group. Rebus had its own test kitchen and photo studio. The test kitchen director was now-famous cookbook author Grace Young! I worked there for 16 years.
How did it start initially? Where did you find your first books to sell?
Early in my time at Rebus, a co-worker told me about a new store called Kitchen Arts & Letters; she said I should go meet the owner, Nach Waxman. That encounter grew into a 12-year partnership stint where I focused on buying and selling out-of-print books. In 1997, Nach and I agreed that it was time for me to go out on my own.
In those days I could walk around the city and visit a whole bunch of used bookstores in a single day. There were still a few bookstores left on Fourth Ave., and also on Fourteenth St., several on Eighteenth St., and farther uptown. I bought a lot of books at the Strand. Soon my vacations from Rebus were mostly book trips with my friend Robin Bledsoe, who lives in Cambridge, Mass. We would rent a car there and drive north in New England (my favorite trips were in Vermont) or around Pennsylvania, or down to Maryland and Virginia to look for books, and come back with a carload. We could easily visit 7 or 8 stores in a day (most of them now, sadly, gone). Robin is a bookseller specializing in art books and books about horses, so we never got in each other’s way while perusing the shelves in a bookshop. We even did one very memorable trip to England, Wales, and Scotland.
What makes a cookbook a classic?
I’ve learned this over the years from my customers who buy a second copy of an out-of-print favorite that they’ve worn to shreds, or buy copies for their children. These are books that, although they may look dated, contain rock-solid recipes that work as well for young cooks today as they did for their parents or grandparents 30 or 40 or more years ago. Many of them are by Knopf authors whose books were edited by Judith Jones, including Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Edna Lewis, and Madhur Jaffrey. A random selection of other books that have sold consistently over the years are Paula Peck’s Art of Fine Baking, Ada Boni’s Italian Regional Cooking (I sold two of these today!), Craig Claiborne’s New York Times Cookbook, Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking, The Moosewood Cookbook, anything by Elizabeth David, and many of James Beard’s books. Also the Time-Life “Good Cook” series.
For someone about to embark on writing a cookbook, what tips do you suggest?
Be sure that you have something original to say! Just having a collection of recipes is not enough. Just having a pretty face is definitely not enough. Why is cooking important to you? Why are these recipes significant to you? Where or whom do they come from? Learn how to write recipes properly, with the ingredients in the proper order and properly described, the method clear but concise. Follow the examples of the classics or get one of the books on the subject.
What do you look for in a cookbook that you will resell?
Just what I’ve described in the previous answers—solid, well-written recipes, an original concept, pleasing design. I look for books that address uncommon cuisines—African, Latin-American, Asian books, obscure regional cuisines of the United States. And of course I always try to stock up on those classic titles that I’ve sold many times before.
What is the most precious cookbook you have ever come across and why?
While looking through the remains of food writer Barbara Kafka’s library—several booksellers had already gone through it—I reached way back into a low, deep shelf where no one else had looked, and found a thick volume bound in vellum (specially prepared calfskin). It was a handwritten 18th century English household book. Manuscript cookbooks are the rarest, and the only cookbooks that can truly be described as “unique.” Many collectors seek them avidly and cherish them.
What are some pet peeves you find in cookbooks?
My biggest is when a recipe “crosses over” a page turn. Unless it’s a very long, complicated recipe, you shouldn’t have to keep flipping pages back and forth to follow it. I’m also not a fan of cookbooks that have no text—introductory essays, headnotes, etc.—accompanying the recipes.
What is an underrated cuisine or genre within the cookbook category?
As far as a genre, I’m a big fan of food writing that weaves recipes into the essays, and the older the book, the better. If I have a favorite book, it’s The Country Kitchen by Della Lutes, published in 1936. Contemporary books are often described as “a memoir with recipes” as if that’s a new thing, but it isn’t.
Could you recall one memorable occasion when you found a treasure trove of cookbooks for your shop?
About 15 years ago I got a call about a large collection of books in a top-floor studio apartment on Bleecker Street. The woman whose estate it was had been in a nursing home for several years and the apartment had been closed up (including the windows) for at least a year. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust and cat hair (at the time I was allergic to cats) and worse still, the owner had been a heavy smoker. Nobody wants to open a cookbook and get hit with a wave of stale cigarette smoke!
It wasn’t an appealing prospect, but as I started to look through the shelves (which lined every wall in the apartment) I found many books by some of the greatest British cookbook authors, including Elizabeth David, Alan Davidson, and Jane Grigson. Then I came across some catalogues from the distinguished British cookbook dealers, Mike and Tessa McKirdy, and realized that she must have been a good customer of theirs. I bought hundreds of books over a period of several weeks, wrangled them down five flights of stairs in a shopping basket (with a lot of help) and spent weeks deodorizing them. (Since then, when I’m offered books to buy, I always ask “Was there a smoker in the house?” because I don’t want to go through that again!).
The woman was also a good customer of Williams Sonoma and had a ridiculous amount of their wares—things like a full-size copper fish poacher and a set of TG Green mixing bowls, ranging from tiny to about 18 inches across. And the apartment didn’t really have a kitchen! I invited a few chefs I knew to come and buy whatever they wanted.
That was my most intense book-buying experience!
You love opera. If Cio-Cio San were to come in to purchase a cookbook to prepare a meal for Pinkerton, what would you recommend?
I read this to my friend Chris Berg, and his answer was “rat poison!” I replied that it would depend which act they were in.
How has New York changed over the years? What do you hope for in the future?
I’ve now lived here for 50 years, almost all that time in the Village (not the West Village, just plain old Greenwich Village). My neighborhood is, thanks to the passionate work of preservationists, a protected historic district, so I can still admire the beautiful patterns of bricks, brownstone, glass, woodwork, iron, and tin as I walk the centuries-old side streets. But on the Avenues, everything has changed. Not only are landmarks regulations looser there, but chain stores have eaten up half-block spans that used to house rows of small businesses: a pottery shop, an art-supply store, a bakery, a toy shop, a candy store, a family-owned pharmacy (I patronize one of the last ones, and I treasure it). A women’s clothing store where I could afford to shop for sturdy Jantzen turtlenecks and Bonnie Doon socks (today there are only designer studios and boutiques, way out of my price range). Forty years ago there were two supermarkets around the corner, just a block apart. I knew the managers and cashiers by name at the A&P, where the fragrances of rotisserie chicken and freshly ground coffee met and mingled. Both stores eventually closed, and it was only last month—some 25 years later—that a new grocery store (a normal one, with reasonable prices, not a Gourmet Shoppe) opened.
It’s hardly news that commercial rents in the city are out of reach for most small businesses, especially those just getting started. A person opening a new (very small) shop with a “reasonable” rent of $5,000 a month might be shocked to find the landlord asking $20,000 at their first lease renewal, just a few years later. There is no regulation of commercial lease rates in New York City, and such increases are not uncommon. You’ve been in business for 40 years at the same location? The landlord doesn’t care—a pricey new condo tower is going up on the corner, and he knows he can get a higher rent from a new tenant selling thousand-dollar shoes or thirty-dollar lattes. The only hope for the future of small business in the city is commercial rent control.
What tips will you give to someone who wants to start a business, especially a vintage cookbook shop?
The same advice I’d give to someone who wants to write a cookbook—you must have a passion for it. Some people open bookstores because their personal collection has outgrown the available space, which is fine, although it’s not my story (customers often ask). If the shop can be in that old barn conveniently located behind your house, you’re golden—no rent is the way to go! If you have a teenaged kid who’s bored in the summer, put her behind the counter—free labor ups your profits! If everybody in town wants to dump their unwanted books on your doorstep, welcome them—no-cost inventory is the best kind!
If you’re not fortunate enough to have that kind of setup, prepare yourself for some heavy costs. Either way, don’t overlook insurance, especially liability insurance: if someone trips on a warped floorboard and breaks a leg, they can sue you for every penny you have.
Don’t be discouraged if business isn’t brisk from day one. Do your best to get the word out, and soon your customers will start sharing their new favorite place; the next thing you know—if your prices are right for your community—you’ll have a nice tidy income. You may reap huge profits, or the business may just pay for itself, as mine does most years, but if you’ve gotten things right you’ll be happy, which is all that matters. Right?
For those who have not read this bit, describe how you found this lovely new spot on the Lower East Side.
Hard to believe I’ve been in my “new” home for almost ten years! The road here was short but bumpy. From 1999 until 2014 my shop was at 163 West Tenth Street, in what had been the first-floor front apartment of a run-down old tenement. It was a long, narrow 350-square-foot space with no storage, unless you counted the 2 ft. x 3 ft. bathroom, and I did. When I moved in there were gaping holes in the floor, the lower half of the wall was missing in places, and you could poke your hand through the ancient wooden door. With lots of help, I transformed it into a cozy space with a sea-blue carpet, an old enamel-topped kitchen table, and many, many books and kitchen oddments on every surface.
This went along relatively smoothly until October 2014, when l got a letter from the landlord stating that he would not renew my lease and I was not to communicate with him. Not a rent hike, but an out-and-out eviction. I was desolate. I drafted an email to my “adoring public“ explaining what was happening. I was a big fan of the blog “Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York,” in which the pseudonymous author wrote about beloved New York establishments that were closing or closed. I sent a copy of my email, along with a note, to “Jeremiah,” and to my amazement, he published both in the blog. http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/11/bonnie-slotnick-cookbooks.html Other online publications, including Gothamist, picked up the post.
A few days later, the phone rang and I heard the voices of a man and a woman, spilling over one another with excitement. “We have a solution to your problem! Our house in the East Village has a commercial space and we need a new tenant! We love books and bookstores and we’d love to have you move here!” I was speechless—and incredulous.
The voices belonged to Margo and Garth Johnston, a sister and brother who were born and raised in the East Village. Their mother, Eden Ross-Lipson, had been the children’s books editor at the New York Times Book Review. They were indeed a book-loving family! And, as I later found out, extraordinary cooks.
The bottom floor of their c. 1836 row house on East Second Street was an immaculate 900 square feet, with an oak floor, two spacious closets, and a back door opening onto an inviting little patio (sere and brown in November, but it burst into bloom that spring). I was sure I couldn’t afford this palace, but when I told them what my last rent had been, they said, “Sure, we can match that.” I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
I've never looked back. I join the Johnstons at their bountifully laden table for Passover seders, Thanksgiving dinners, and various festivities in between. They invite my customers to sit in the garden. They didn’t accept any rent during the months-long Covid shutdown. They help me in every possible way and dispel any worries I might have about the future of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. I’m still in heaven.