Posted by Jeff Jurmain in books, news and media, shops on September 21, 2007 at 1:10 pm

The Cookbook Store
850 Yonge Street
416-920-2665

Tomorrow at the Cookbook Store there will be a knife skills demonstration. Expert slicer Peter Hertzmann will be wielding metal, signing his new book, and mingling. This sort of thing happens a lot in this niche book shop.

Owner Alison Fryer says almost every Saturday until December is full of book signings and demonstrations. They even have special days, featuring different types of food. Soon she’ll host an “apple day” that will assuredly tread far past the simple McIntosh.

Welcome to the Cookbook Store (CBS). Sure, the walls are lined with popular and hard-to-find books of recipes, cooking techniques, and food literature, but there’s a lot more here beneath the surface. You don’t even have to buy a book; just come in, talk about food, and go about your day.

"It’s a community center almost," Fryer says. "People can hang out; they don’t want to buy anything, just chat. That’s fine."

She says they don’t just sell cookbooks, but offer an experience of food in the city. The CBS actually doubles as a culinary tour agency. Americans often email Fryer and ask where to eat and shop in Toronto. (Soon, Fryer will lead a pack of Yale alumni on a food tour of the city.)

The CBS has sat on the edge of Yorkville since 1983. "Never thought I’d be here for 25 years," Fryer says. Luckily for her, the shop opened right when the idea of food was starting to change. Martha Stewart’s book Entertaining had just come out. Rather than just putting it on the table, food was becoming entertainment. It was getting important. "We hit at the right time, unbeknownst to us," she says.

A quarter-century later, it’s clear they hit hard. This joint is stocked with hard-to-find, professional, interesting reading material. (They do focus on Canadian books, which continually make up half the store’s best-seller list.) Aside from the books, this store attracts the city’s real kitchen masters.

Toronto chefs are in the store constantly. These aren’t no-namers either. Three or four had been there the morning I visited. They chat with Fryer and customers. They buy books for inspiration, to see what’s happening internationally, and to research technical points of cooking. For instance, the "Sous-Vide" style of cooking from Spain is popular now; it involves vacuum-sealing food and cooking at low temperatures for long periods of time.

Plus, a cookbook makes a decent gift for a sous-chef’s birthday.

Incredibly, this small indie store's reach is very wide. Fryer connects with restaurants around the world, importing their recipe books that aren’t often available this side of the Atlantic. These books are imported long before distributors ever get to this continent. Fryer explains that most bookstores generally won't go through the effort of buying one recipe book from one seller somewhere in Europe.

The store's reputation is not limited to Toronto. In their store (minuscule next to nearby Indigo), they've had such food celebrities as Martha Stewart, Julia Child, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Paul Bocuse, Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain, and Emeril Lagasse. Chef Emeril signed books for four hours when 1,200 people showed up. "We went through a box of sharpies," Fryer adds.

"It’s a lot of fun. Half the time we just chat about food and what restaurants they’ve been to."

Despite the global reach, the shop is very local. Here in Toronto, it's intended to open people's eyes to books both popular and obscure. Fryer obviously enjoys the back-and-forth with chefs, but says she gets a real kick out of giving someone their very first cookbook.
The vibe of the store, comfortable and friendly, attests to that. Fryer says the shop attained the community feel by visiting culinary schools at local colleges, doing local events, and shopping at all of the city's markets, meeting those who run booths. She makes a point of conversing with customers to see where their interests lay—and uses their input when selecting books.

At this House That Food Built, 22,000 cookbook titles have come through the doors. They are selected carefully. Sure, Jamie Oliver's new book is a definite must. But Fryer says they specialize in lesser-known works that are written well, with recipes not just printed but actually tested. Here are just a few interesting titles (books are approximately $20 and up):

• Recipe for Love from the owner of Toronto’s Addis Ababa restaurant

• Arab Cooking in the Saskatchewan Homestead reveals Syrian recipes from the Prairies.

• Slice is a healthy eating book that local residents put together.

• Aroma of Alepps details the "legendary cuisine of Syrian Jews."

• Arranging the Meal documents the history of table service in France.

• Kaiseki unveils recipes from Kikunoi Restaurant in Kyoto, Japan.

And on and on it goes. "It shows you what’s out there," Fryer says. "It's interesting to see what tickles people's fancy." Aside from these unusual titles, customers will find whatever they're looking for in this store. And will probably have a good time doing it.

What does the future hold for the CBS? Fryer says they will keep going strong. "We always said if we opened up a catalogue and didn't get excited about the new fall season, than obviously we'd hit a saturation point."

That point is nowhere to be found. The excitement in the store, from the staff, is palpable. They truly get a kick out of food. And with Toronto being a cultural melting pot, and with the availability of recipe ingredients here, the CBS will continue to be the place to watch for food and for trends to come (such as molecular cooking, which Fryers says local chefs are researching a lot lately).

The condos going up all around the CBS is making for a vibrant walking community, Fryer says. These buildings will sit nestled within the culinary community this atypical bookstore has managed to create. A community that Frommer's says is built on "food porn."