One of my favorite spring and summer desserts is a lemon tart with berries and whipped cream. This is one of those pastries where everything melds into the perfect balance of flavors and textures -- the lemon's tartness nicely contrasts the sweetness of the berries and the luscious cream ties it all together. If you have Meyer lemons, so much the better as they are sweeter and have a more complex citrus flavor then the standard variety.

Lemon tart with berries is also the ideal dessert for anyone wishing to make a dish from local and seasonal ingredients. Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are popping up in markets and backyards throughout the area. Meyer lemons are also in abundance right now. You can find them at most farmers' markets, and maybe even closer by in a neighbor's yard (or your own) as they grow beautifully in the Bay Area. If you don't have your own tree, but have seen one at someone else's house, I bet they'd share if you asked nicely and promised to bring over a nice slice of tart.

I've tried numerous lemon custard recipes, but my favorite is the Tarte au Citron recipe in the Bouchon cookbook by Thomas Keller. And, as luck would have it, this recipe is freely available at Epicurious.com, so you don’t have to buy the book to get it (although if you're in the market for a gorgeous book full of amazing recipes, I recommend it). I love Mr. Keller's lemon sabayon because the consistency lies beautifully in the tart crust, it isn't too eggy and the lemon flavor really shines through. Also, don't let the fact that you need to cook the custard in a bowl over a pot of simmering water dissuade you. This is not hard to make.

The Bouchon recipe calls for a pine nut crust, which I have made in the past and liked. That said, I prefer to make a regular butter crust for my tart as I think the lemon and berry flavors are interesting enough on their own and don't necessarily need a nutty component.

This is a great dessert to prepare ahead of time and then serve chilled. Topped with some berries that have macerated in a bit of sugar and lemon juice, along with a dollop of freshly-made whipped cream, you have the perfect seasonal dessert.

Lemon Sabayon
from Bouchon by Thomas Keller

Makes: Enough for one tart

Ingredients:
2 large eggs, cold
2 large egg yolks, cold
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces

For preparation instructions, go to Lemon Tart recipe at Epicurious.com

Sweet Berries with Lemon and Sugar

Makes: Enough berries to garnish each tart slice

Ingredients:
2 cups berries, washed and stemmed
¼ cup sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice (preferably Meyer lemon)

Preparation:
1. Wash and hull berries. If using strawberries, cut into slices.
2. Place berries in a bowl and mix in sugar and lemon. Stir and set aside for at least ten minutes.
3. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Flaky Pie or Tart Dough
Adapted from a recipe by Kim Laidlaw

Makes: Enough for one 10-inch tart

Ingredients:
1 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
6 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 cup ice water + 1 tablespoon

Preparation:
1. To make the crust, in the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, and salt. Sprinkle the butter over the top and process for a few seconds, or just until the butter is slightly broken up into the flour but still in visible pieces. Sprinkle the water over the flour mixture evenly, then process until the mixture just starts to come together.
2. Dump the mixture out of the bowl onto 2 large sheets of plastic wrap. Press the dough together into a mound and then wrap with plastic and press into a flat disk. Refrigerate the dough until chilled, about 30 minutes or up to 1 day, or freeze for up to 1 month.

My mother never wanted to be taken out on Mother's Day. "Don't you dare," she'd say, half-joking but half-serious. Mostly, she disliked the obligatory part of it, the thought of being surrounded by, as she said, "all those people who probably never talk to each other the rest of the year, having to be nice to the old bat because it's her day." Not us, of course, but still she had no interest in getting hauled out for overpriced mimosas and underdone eggs Benedict.

What she did like was a homemade breakfast, wobbled up the stairs as soon as the oldest of her three girls was able to carry a tray. We didn't make anything particularly fancy, but just putting together eggs, toast, and coffee can be a challenge when you're four, seven and eight, even with Dad on deck. Partly, I think, she enjoyed the simple luxury of a morning off, but it also reassured her that we'd picked up the basics of what she did to feed us, day in and day out.

As she attests in her lavishly illustrated and user-friendly new book, Williams-Sonoma Family Meals: Creating Traditions in the Kitchen, cookbook author and former PlumpJack Cafe chef Maria Helm Sinskey feels the same way. Kids should know where their food comes from, whether it means picking out carrots at the market or helping Dad fry shrimp.

This isn't a kids' cookbook; instead, it's a cooking-together kind of book, full of dishes and menus that a whole family can make and enjoy together.

Helm Sinskey, her husband (acclaimed organic winemaker Robert Sinskey) and their two girls are adorable, the styling is charming, the recipes look both tasty and accessible, and alright, I'll admit it: by page 50, I was envious (those chickens! that lavender! those sweet dirty carrots!), and by page 260, I was downright suspicious. Who were these preternaturally well-behaved children daintily cutting out star shapes from their very own homemade marshmallows? As they frolic in the meadows around the Sinskeys' gorgeous wine-country house while stuffing handfuls of fresh vegetables into their mouths and saying things like "Mommy, you make the best vanilla ice cream ever!" the whole package can seem almost too rustically perfect.

Then again, it's a Williams-Sonoma book, not real life. And dinner with the Sinskeys sure looks like fun. In a time when some kids live on juice boxes and Cheerios, and other parents treat a single cupcake like a gateway drug to a lifetime sugar binge, Helm Sinskey's approach is refreshingly down to earth.

Her family seems to make the most of that old standby, the varied and balanced diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables are treated as a joy and a treat, not like pills that have to be gooped with brownie batter before they'll go down. As a smart mom and chef, she advocates for sustainable, responsible eating, providing helpful lists of recommended seafood, for example, or the differences between grass- and grain-fed beef. But she also doesn't flinch from serving reasonable amounts of butter, cream, steak, and yes, marshmallows. She can wax rhapsodic about red lentils and yellow split peas while also giving step-by-step instructions for making your own bacon.

In fact, the rainy-day projects interspersed throughout the book, like rolling pasta and pizza dough, simmering chicken stock, and making homemade jam and ricotta cheese, really make this two books in one.

The everyday recipes are good enough for company but generally simple enough to get on the table for a family meal, especially if some little hands help shell the peas, shuck the corn, or peel the shrimp.

The projects are part science (how does yeast grow? why does milk curdle?) part kitchen technique, and part educational messy fun. Who needs a Game Boy when you can be making real, honest-to-Pete home-cured bacon? OK, that last one might take a little convincing. But a kid who can make her own bacon is a kid well-prepared for adulthood. Thank Maria Helm Sinskey for that.

Last week, So You Want to Write a Cookbook: Part 1 offered some insider advice to would-be authors with Julia Child ambitions. Today, with Part 2, a few answers to those questions you didn't know to ask, from what makes a recipe yours to how to get an agent.

How do I create an original recipe?

1. Read cookbooks, and travelogues, and biographies and memoirs of interesting people from cultures that intrigue you. New cookbooks are the most seductive, of course, but the 641 section of the library is every food writer's friend. Other people's recipes can be a starting point; after all, you can't create your own pesto recipe without knowing the typical way a pesto is put together. Anything you taste, or even just read about, can be an inspiration for a recipe. The important part? Once you've got your idea, get in the kitchen and mess around. Measure, take notes, taste, take more notes, make it again. This is the part that is messy and time consuming, but the strength of your recipes depends on it.

Once you've got your recipes nailed down, pass them around. Get your mom, your friends (especially the ones who say they can't cook), and your neighbors to make these dishes. No hints, no tips, just what's written down. See if you can taste and take a look at what they produce.

As for the source of your inspiration, when in doubt, attribute. Cookbook author and former Bay Area pastry chef David Lebovitz recently posted a very useful article about copyrighting and fair play around recipes. Remember, even if you found something floating around on the internet with no attribution, it didn't get there by itself. Someone, somewhere created that recipe, and it's not yours until you've shaken it up, changed some ingredients, and re-written the instructions in your own voice.

OK, I've got my recipes. How do I get published?

2. The short answer? You get an agent to do it for you. Why? Because professionals use agents, and that means that submissions that come through agents are considered more seriously by publishers. Agents know what publishers are looking for, and so an agent will work with you to polish your submission into something worth publishing. Having opened a lot of unsolicited submissions during my time working at Chronicle Books, I can say that most un-agented submissions didn't tell us what we needed to know.

Swell. How do I get an agent?

3. You pick up a bunch of cookbooks similar to yours and read the acknowledgments. There aren't that many agencies that represent cookbook authors, so you'll have a short list in no time. You can also ask any friends who've been published who represents them, and if they've had a good experience with their representation.

The way you get an agent interested is the same way you get a publisher interested: with a great proposal. Remember, charming as you may be, you're only useful to an agent if your book sells.

A proposal should include:
• A brief cover letter, explaining your idea, who you are, and why you're the right person to write this book. If you have a connection to any fellow authors represented by that agency, and they've given you the OK to use their name, mention it here.
• A C.V. covering your writing and/or culinary experience, including any awards as well as anything that makes you look promotable and media-savvy, like cooking demos or TV appearances.
• Marketing and trend research, pointing out why this is a hot topic now, acknowledging similar books, and explaining how your book differs from the competition.
• A table of contents
• A recipe list
• The introduction, followed by a sample chapter including 3 or 4 recipes.
• Press clips lauding any of your previous books, or clips of published articles you've written

What if I've never published anything else? Doesn't my blog count?

4. Get published first, before you try to pump out a book. A publisher wants to be sure that you can write on deadline and handle the editorial process. The only way to prove this is to write professionally for a while. A personal blog is a good calling card, but just because you can write to your own satisfaction doesn't mean you can do it as a job. Those bloggers you've heard of getting book deals? Most of them were professionals in the publishing world already, either as writers, designers, or photographers. Get some experience pitching articles and writing for editors, and you'll be much better equipped to produce a book.

Your brownies reign supreme. Your roast chicken makes Zuni Cafe look like Safeway's rotisserie. Proposals--not all tongue-in-cheek--pile up when your strawberry-rhubarb pie arrives. Your friends, your family, your blogging buddies all agree: you should write a book. They'd buy it, their friends would buy it, Ina and Martha would arm-wrestle over who would get you on her show first.

Don't you wish it was that easy?! The first thing to know about writing a cookbook is that publishing is a business, and businesses have to make money to stay in business. They do this by paying attention to a whole lot of things, from profit and loss projections to trend research. It helps to realize, right from the beginning, that your book will get published only if a bunch of people (and not just editors, but sales and marketing folks too) can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it will sell and make money.

Of course, if you just want to give out your favorite recipes to family and friends, it's easier than ever to self-publish, especially as an on-demand or e-book. But if you want the glamour of a Library of Congress number and a place on your local bookstore's cookbooks shelf, you'd better toughen up.
Here, words to the wise, part 1:

1. It's a cookbook, not the Great American Novel. Yes, some people buy (and read) cookbooks for the writing, just like some people buy Playboy for the articles. But, just like Playboy, many more people buy it for the pictures, or in this case, the recipes. Content editors, copy editors, proofreaders, and yes, even your editor's phone-answering assistant will be slicing and dicing your precious prose. Believe it or not, they're actually making you sound better. If you can't hand over this kind of control, stick with self-publishing.

2. Learn to write recipes like the pros. This means being consistent from start to finish. For example, ingredients should always be listed in the order in which they're going to be used. Measurements should be written the same way each time, not teaspoon on one page and tsp the next. Each time you saute an onion or roll out a batch of pastry dough, it helps to trot out the same description in the same language. Consider your audience, too. If you're a professional pastry chef, you probably work your recipes out by weight-- easier and much more consistent, of course, except that most American home bakers measure by teaspoons and cups, not grams and ounces.

3. Stay ahead of the trends. Would-be authors are often shocked to find out just how long it takes to put out a book. Let's put it this way: if you sold your book idea tomorrow, you probably wouldn't see a finished copy until fall of 2010 at the earliest; more likely spring of '11. Which means the trend of the moment better have some long legs. I don't doubt that someone's pitching a goat cookbook right now, goat being the latest meat white people like. A goat cookbook on the shelves right now would be perfect; in two years, who knows? The meat-garde among us may have moved on to rabbit and guinea pig.

4. Have a hook. It's not enough to throw together your greatest hits if no one knows your name. it's sad but true that being famous in one realm is usually enough to get a hotshot deal in another (see Schwarzenegger, Governor Arnold). The rest of us have to rely on snappy ideas.

5. Got your hook? Now you need your title. Skinny Bitch, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Snakes on a Plane: all of these tell you exactly what you need to know, including the authors' attitude. I'm a little embarrassed by the very literal title of my latest book. Then again, calling an astrology cookbook The Astrology Cookbook does make the Googling pretty darn easy.

6. Prove yourself. It helps if your connection to your cuisine of choice is breathtakingly obvious. You're Jewish and you're writing about the new kosher cooking! You own a fish restaurant and you're writing about seafood! Of course, crossovers do happen-- just ask Arthur Schwartz, now a go-to guy for Southern Italian. But no matter where you come from, you better have a good answer as to why and how you're an expert-- in fact, the ONLY expert-- on your particular topic.

7. Figure out what goes where. If you were a punk band, you wouldn't send your demo to Deutsche Grammophon, would you? When I worked at Chronicle Books, I opened up a lot of proposals for diet schemes, foodie memoirs, and celebrity cookbooks-- none of which matched anything on our list. Ask for a catalog, browse through the library or a well-stocked bookstore cookbook section and see what titles come close to yours before you start pitching your proposals.

Up next: what's in a proposal, creating (and copyrighting) recipes, and do you need an agent?

Wash, chop, sift and stir. Think only of washing, chopping, sifting and stirring. Breathe and be mindful of each slice of the knife, of each swirl of the spoon, of the magical process of cooking.

There are certain books that are such a part of one's life, that it's hard to believe that not everyone knows about them. In fact, when I sat down to write this blog post, I found it unbelievable that I have never mentioned this book to you before. 3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery was published in 2000 and written by Seppo Ed Farrey. I bought it soon after, and have been cooking with it ever since.

Farrey is an ordained Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and was the head chef for Dai Bosatsu Zendo in the Catskills of New York when he wrote the book. With co-author Myochi Nancy O'Hara, Farrey mixed recipes along with messages of mindful cooking, and information about Zen monasteries and their practices around food.

At first glance, 3 Bowls comes across as a slightly hippie, stuck-in-the-seventies, type of vegetarian cookbook. There are recipes such as a Quinoa-Mushroom Nut Loaf which is to be served with Nondairy Mashed Potatoes. But delve a bit deeper into the book and you find the basis for Japanese rustic cooking that has taken me a long way in the kitchen.

One of my favorite recipes from the book is a dressing that is so easy, it's almost embarrassing when people make a fuss over it. My friend Tara once mentioned on her blog that the dressing is "the kind that makes you want to lick the bowl." I had to laugh as I left the recipe in the comments: it involves one part water, one part soy sauce, one part sesame oil, and one part rice vinegar. Then I put it in a jar and shake it up. She's right -- it's an addictive flavor that I use on a constant basis.

I also love the Tofu Sashimi Platter recipe, and the Soba with Shiitake Dashi. Both are regular recipes that I find to be satisfying in taste and very healthy as well. I should mention that I am definitely not a vegetarian, but I find that many of the recipes in this book satisfy vegetarians and omnivores alike. If you'd like to try some recipes before buying, Google books has an extensive preview of 3 Bowls and you can peruse through approximately 100 pages of the book.

I like a challenge as much as the next person. Cooking without any meat, dairy or eggs is a pretty big challenge for me, but every once in a while I do go vegan. My problem with most vegan cookbooks is they tend to veer off into the realm of meat substitutes. Frankly, if I want to eat meat, I will, so I prefer more creative approaches.

To get inspired and learn new cooking techniques there are two cookbooks I rely on, Veganomicon and The Accidental Vegan. Veganomicon was written by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, two hipsters and founders of the Post Punk Kitchen. Some great recipes from the book include Pasta e Fagioli and Chickpeas Romesco.

The Accidental Vegan by Devra Gartenstein features recipes that are very straightforward and easy to cook. They are definitely the type of recipes that will make you forget you are not eating meat. The Greek Lentil Soup, Szechuan Noodle Salad, Fennel Tapenade and Baba Ganoush recipes are all keepers. Sadly many of the dessert recipes often use non-hydogenated margarine which does not appeal to me.

I spoke to author, teacher and dietician, Jill Nussinow the "Veggie Queen" to to get her thoughts on the subject:

"I think that the big key to going vegan is to make food taste great no matter what. Many ethnic dishes are or can be vegan easily -- think Thai (minus fish sauce and substitute tamari or Bragg's liquid amino acids), Mexican minus the cheese, Indian, Japanese, Chinese. Classic combos such as rice, beans and tortillas are vegan. The salsa and guacamole are too."

"Use the freshest food that that you can buy and don't expect anything to taste like meat because it doesn't. One of the worst things to do is buy vegan cheese or some kind of meat substitute and think that it's going to be the same as eating whatever it resembles, at least by name."

Here are my tips for incorporating more vegan meals into your diet:

Cook Asian & Middle Eastern Food
These cuisines are loaded with easy vegan dishes such as Hummus, Thai Style Vegetable Curry, Tofu Stir Fried with Shiitake Mushrooms and Chinese Peas.

Concoct Creamy Soups
Making soup is a great way to use a variety of vegetables. Pureeing cooked corn, black beans or potatoes will yield a creamy soup without any dairy.

Build Hearty Salads
Salads made from ingredients like avocados, bulgur, edamame and shredded vegetables are anything but rabbit food.

Don't Forget to Snack!
Dips and spreads made from beans, nuts, and even roasted vegetables can be tasty and nutritious.

Invest in Olive Oil
Olive oil adds flavor and nutrition and can often be used in place of butter. Try it in mashed potatoes, popcorn and on garlic bread.

If you have tips of your own, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

A few years ago Shauna, the blogger aka Gluten-Free Girl, wrote about Eating Gluten-Free in Italy. She was amazed at how many gluten-free products she found there. It turns out celiac disease is the most common genetic disease in Europe and in Italy about 1 in 250 people suffer from it.

Celiac disease is a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with the absorption of nutrients from food. Celiacs cannot tolerate a protein called gluten, commonly found in wheat, rye, barley, and possibly oats. The problem is, gluten can be very hard to avoid. It's not just in things made from flour but as an additive in things like bouillon, candy, cured meats, sauces, soups, soy sauce and even tortilla chips. The symptoms of celiac disease are many and include a whole host of gastrointestinal disorders, making it hard to diagnose.

Relatively few Americans are diagnosed with celiac disease, it's estimated most suffer unknowingly. Fortunately awareness is growing in no small part thanks to food blogs like Gluten-Free Girl, Karina's Kitchen and La Tartine Gourmande (mostly gluten-free). Each of these three blogs include plenty of recipes but are really about the love of food and how our experiences connect us all, written by passionate, funny women with unusually strong creative talents.

Celiac products are beginning to show up on shelves, and not surprisingly some of the best are from Italy like two newly introduced gluten-free organic pastas from Rustichella d'Abruzzo. One is made entirely from corn, the other from rice. If you are cooking for someone who is celiac, they are a great choice. Each are light and flavorful, but like conventional pasta they must not be overcooked or they become gummy. The rice noodles are particularly good with Asian style sauces and the corn noodles pair well with Southwestern flavors. Here are a couple more suggestions for how to use them, courtesy of Market Hall Foods, I think canned tomatoes would work in place of fresh too:

• Cook some loose Italian sausage with fresh tomatoes and garlic and toss with the Corn Fusili
• Stir together fresh tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese and fresh parsley and mint. Let marinate for a few hours and toss with the Rice Spaghetti

Two good books for celiacs include Shauna's book, Gluten-Free Girl How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back...And How You Can Too and 1000 Gluten-Free Recipe. Shauna's book will be an inspiration to anyone who wants to enjoy food, not just tolerate it. While Gluten-Free Girl has some recipes in it, the real bible is 1000 Gluten-Free Recipes. It's what the Joy of Cooking is for the rest of us, a place to find a recipe for almost everything under the sun.

Last weekend, I wandered back into Omnivore Books on Food to pick up a copy of Margaret Visser’s The Rituals of Dinner, that store owner Celia Sacks was kind enough to order for me (without my even having to ask, thank you very much).

I knew Clark Wolf, author of American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, and Farmhouse Cheeses would be there, talking about his book with Soyoung Scanlan of Andante Dairy.

As an American who happens to love cheese, the timing of my store visit required little thought.

When I arrived a little late for the reading (owing to the fact that I had my face buried too deeply in another book, missed my stop, and had to walk an extra five blocks), the tiny book store was filled with people focused on the animated Mr. Wolf talking of his grandparents and the role they played in his culinary imprinting.

Chatty and extremely energetic in a way that I envy, but would find personally exhausting, Wolf read excepts from his book. For example, when explaining why the difference in price of cow v. goat v. sheep milk cheese:

…sheep act like, well, sheep. If there’s a storm a-comin' or one of the flock feels blue or there's a new horse in the corral or a new dog in the field, they may just freak out and decide not to give milk, or be too upset to move easily into the milking barn. And when all is well, they still give only about a liter a day per sheep.

After Wolf's presentation, I decided to buy a copy of the book, having liked what he said enough to want to read more about American Cheese. And, no, not that kind of American Cheese, though that is briefly but firmly discounted in the book. I then asked him to sign my Margaret Visser book, since she was not present.

I'm glad I bought the book. It is as personable and informal as Wolf is in person, which is a good thing. Though not encyclopedic in its scope, there is a lot of good information to be gleaned from its pages.

From such basic information as the definition of what constitutes cheese, the different categories of it, how each is made, and good looking recipes in which they might find good employ, to the short biographies of America’s leading cheese producers, it reads more like a “getting to know you” book-- as though, through reading, you have casually picked the brain of an entertaining cheesemonger, which is essentially how Clark Wolf began to gain his 30-plus years of cheese-related knowledge in the first place.

But what , if anything, defines a cheese as "American?" Is there some unifying factor? Some unique coagulate or binding force? Not exactly. When asking, for example, a Southern cheese maker in what ways her colleagues were regionally unifiable and identifiable, he received this response: "Absolutely no way at all. We’re each completely different." And that was just the Southern contingent. If one starts to think about California cheese makers, one’s head might explode trying to come up with an answer.

Perhaps this lack of cohesion is what makes American Cheese makers, well, uniquely American. Or perhaps not. I look to the French, as so many cheese makers have done in the past, to put things into perspective. I will leave you with the unmistakably French, shoulder-shrugging cynicism of Charles de Gaulle:

One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

Anyone who knows me well would be surprised to hear me recommending a Christmas book. I am a "bah humbug" type who tries desperately to escape the holiday each year. Not only do I not celebrate Christmas but I despise the crass commercialism, forced sentimentality, and find green and red to be the most distasteful color combination of all. But I am loving Elizabeth David's Christmas. It would seem David was a bit overwhelmed by the holiday as well, in part because her family had many birthdays right around Christmas. Her preference?

"If I had my way--and I shan't--my Christmas day eating and drinking would consist of an omelette, cold ham and a nice bottle of wine at lunchtime, and a smoked salmon sandwich with a glass of champagne on a tray in bed in the evening."

Doesn't that just say it all? Lovely, selfish and and anti-gorging is what she called her ideal version of the holiday. And while she didn't have it her way, her recipes and notes do fill a tidy volume, sadly compiled after her death. Spiced Quinces, Endive and Beetroot Salad, and Leeks with Red Wine are just a few of her tantalizing ideas. Don't expect a modern cookbook. Her recipes are bit like formulas, but I find them inspiring and even if I didn't, I'd want to read her prose because it's so brilliant. Don't miss the final essay, "Para Navidad" which is a lovely culinary travel piece and will instantly transport you to Spain. Of course, how recipes using fresh tomatoes and ripe apricots ended up in this book is anyone's guess, but enjoy it year round. There are notes for American cooks in the back of the book.

If Christmas in another place and time appeals to you, especially a Victorian London place and time, check out The Great Dickens Christmas Fair which runs weekends though December 21. Run by the creators of the Renaissance Faire, it's held at the Cow Palace and features hundreds of costumed players, colorful characters from literature and history, and winding lanes filled with shops, pubs, and food.

Tickets are $10 for children ages 5 – 11 (under 5 are free); $19 for students/seniors/military; and adults are $22 at the door. Discount tickets available.

Here's a drink from Elizabeth David's Christmas that sounds enticing, even for a Scrooge like me.

Regina Port Cocktail
According to David, "The cheaper kinds of port may be made into a good mixed drink for those who do not care for gin."

4 glasses tawny port
4 dashes orange bitters
1 teaspoon Angostura bitters
1 teaspoon Cointreau

Shake well with ice, in a cocktail shaker. Float a snippet of orange peel on top of each glass.

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.

Omnivore will soon be hosting book-related events. In December, the store will host such guests as Cindy Mushet, author of The Art and Soul of Baking, and Clark Wolf, author of American Cheeses. To find out about more events, visit Omnivore's event calendar online. Or, hell, go into the store and pick one up yourself.

In an era where books are gradually losing ground to the likes of the Internet and Kindle, and in a global economy that is causing people to curtail their expenditures, Omnivore's debut is a brave one. But a necessary one, I think. There is a certain comfort in reading about food, certainly, but that comfort is often served cold when reading about it on a computer screen. It cannot compare to the heft of a good book in one's hands, the smell of its musty pages, or the knowledge that it has been loved and used and read by others. Beyond what's written in its pages, there is a story behind every book. And I think Celia and Omnivore understand that. Perfectly.

Omnivore is located at:

3885a Cesar Chavez Street

San Francisco, CA 94131

Tel: 415-282-4712

omnivorebooks.com