The River Cafe Cookbook and A Thousand Feasts
Some people order shoes from The Real Real while drunk. I order secondhand cookbooks from AbeBooks.
Welcome to the first installment of Off the Shelf, where I will feature cookbooks from my collection. I would call myself an avid, or at least enthusiastic, reader. A good portion of my reading time is spent with cookbooks. I am not typically reading these in the kitchen. Often, I am in bed, on the train, or at my dining table.
Rarely am I opening these books in search of a specific recipe to follow. I read these more like novels — complete with exposition, drama, and resolution: the tension and uncertainty of waiting for the roast chicken to cook; the relief of opening the oven to find the skin perfect and the juices rendering the leeks beneath delightfully jammy.
Several stand like soldiers on my counter, waiting to be summoned on to the battlefield in a time of dire need. These are my go-to’s: most loved, most referenced, the ones I return back to most frequently.
My true favorites reside on the windowsill next to my bed. Mostly food memoirs, these are sacred and watch over me while I sleep, tucked into the window ledge.
The rest of them, perhaps less loved though no less cherished, live in stacks on top of my kitchen cabinets. (I have, however, reached my limit here and am in need of a dedicated bookcase).
In this first installment, I’m featuring two books by British cooks. The first, The River Cafe Cookbook, details recipes from the acclaimed London restaurant of the same name. The second, A Thousand Feasts, is a memoir of sorts by my favorite food writer, Nigel Slater.
The River Cafe Cookbook by Rose Gray and Ruthie Rogers
I keep a pinned list on my phone entitled “list of things I love” (my Sound of Music-esque list of favorite things). This list includes:
“The way women who do not spend the majority of their day on a computer type — slow and click-y”.
or:
“The way Thomas Mars sings the words ‘some other time, some other day.’”
It also includes:
“When secondhand cookbooks arrive wrapped in shiny plastic cling wrap.”
I have been closely following, listening to every podcast episode, and wanting to visit The River Cafe in London for many years. I realized a few months ago that I did not have any of their cookbooks in my collection, and purchased their first from a secondhand bookseller in Georgia via AbeBooks (yes, intoxicated). I knew it would be good from the moment I cut open the package and saw the shiny, clingy material staring back, just like a baked good .
Ruthie Rogers and The River Cafe is probably the most cited reference for restaurants and chefs I love. Clare de Boer and Jess Shadbolt of King are River Cafe alums. Jamie Oliver got his start there (have you revisited The Naked Chef? It might be deserving of a full post…).
I have only just dipped my toe into cooking the recipes in their entirety, but I have found myself cracking it open for inspiration when cooking (it now sits on my countertop). All of the food is simple Italian, reliant on high qualify ingredients. Like the chefs who reference it, The River Cafe combines simple dishes with versatile sauces: steak with salsa verde, fish and potatoes with anchovy and rosemary sauce.
In their intro, Rose and Ruthie write:
We feel that our recipes are accessible to anyone cooking at home. We took our Italian knowledge and recipes from the domestic kitchen to the restaurant; our book now returns them there.
Recipes on my list to cook include:
Their spaghetti al limone
Penne with slow cooked sausage sauce
Poleta, almond, and lemon cake
Chicory al Forno
Marinated Grilled Lamb
These are the types of dishes I love - simple, yet elegant (reminds me of another favorite of River Cafe heritage, Stissing House).
A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater
Nigel Slater’s A Thousand Feasts has traveled with me to many places across the U.S. and throughout Japan. I have spent the last year reading it because each page feels like eating dessert — reading too much at once spoils the perfection, so I continue to morsel it out in an effort to savor it as long as possible.
Each story in this book is exactly that: a morsel. Each bite-sized musing details a small moment, event, or happening. Many of these would be otherwise unceremonious in passing, but Slater’s detailed and indulgent description allows them to become transcendent. These stories are quite stream of consciousness, as they are collected from his fragmented diaries over the course of many years.
Such musings include A table of herbs in Tehran, Lighting incense, A bowl of soup for breakfast in Kamakura, or most relevantly, waking to snow in London and Kyushu.
Waking to snow in New York City this morning. The sound of coffee being ground in the background.
I should note that this is in no way a traditional cookbook, there are no recipes shared. He does however have an extremely organized archive of recipes on his website if that is of as much interest to you as it is to me. This is in addition to other books he writes and a weekly recipe contribution to The Observer.
If you are unfamiliar with Nigel Slater, his book The Kitchen Diaries opens with his manifesto of sorts:
Right food, right place, right time. It is my belief… that this is the best recipe of all.
He continues,
A crab sandwich by the sea on a June afternoon; a slice of roast goose with apple sauce and roast potatoes on Christmas Day; hot sausages and a chunk of roast pumpkin on a frost-sparkling night in November. These are meals whose success relies not on the expertise of the cook but on the more basic premise that this is the food of the moment — something eaten at a time when it is the most appropriate, when the ingredients are at the peak of perfection, when the food, the cook and the time of year are at one with each other.
This ethos sums up my approach to food: presence over perfection, finding magic in the mundane. Great meals bring us back to the present moment, make us feel fully aware and alive. This book now resides next to my bed as a daily reminder that attention creates importance.
On the Map: Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks
Along with the cookbooks, each month I feature one food-related store in NYC. The full map of all places featured will be coming soon!
In compiling this I realized I have no photos of the store outside of the shop dog. The first two photos are not mine and are taken from here and here.
Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks
28 East Second St.
New York, NY 10003
I could not kick off this segment without mentioning Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in the East Village. A neighborhood staple, Bonnie sells out-of-print, antique, and rare cookbooks, magazines, and tableware/cooking utensils. Walking down the stairs and into her basement store feels like entering a pre-internet treasure trove, organized by location, cuisine, and form. Many of the cookbooks I have were purchased here. This includes:
The Zen Macrobiotic Cookbook
A set of Good Housekeeping magazines
Earth, Water, Fire, Air
In The Green Kitchen
Whatever you are looking for, Bonnie knows where to turn (and often has it in-store).
I am flying to California later this week for the holidays. Talk to you next week for a California-inspired Meal In.