After creating this blog we go to bookstores more often. Based in Indonesia, whenever abroad we always look for one that specializes in books and paraphernalia related to food and drink. Once we find one, we will spend hours in it, talking to the staff and engross in the knowledge sanctuary. With luck we might meet the owners who are typically walking encyclopedia on food and books.

In 2012 we went to a cookbook shop in Notting Hill, the trendy and artsy suburb in London, and wrote Books for Cooks- A Haven for Food Enthusiasts.

Last year, in 2013, it was a bookshop with the same name, but located in Melbourne, so we crafted the title: Books for Cooks in the Southern Hemisphere.‎

This year, while in New York City we visited Kitchen Arts & Letters. Located on 1435 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128, like any specialty shop it is not very big, but anybody will be amazed to see the collections.

"Kitchen Arts & Letters," its owner Nahum Waxman said to Azure,  "is not a cookbook store."

“It is a cultural zone – in which one can explore almost every aspect of this everyday feature of all our lives – how and where we get our food, how we distribute it, prepare it, consume it and even how we think about it.”

Craig LaBan, the restaurant critic and drink columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, noted Waxman’s visions in Forward.  "We want books that show how it all fits together — that show every aspect of how food impacts our life.... We carry books here you didn’t know existed until you came — and that’s the kind of serendipity you still can’t find online. We don’t sell any books here without a conversation.”

Indeed it was a conversation, nice and informative, that we had when first entering Kitchen Arts & Letter.

We did not meet the esteemed Nahum Waxman who graduated from Cornell and studied at Harvard before switching to book editing career where he spent close to two decades of his life. Instead, Matt Sartwell, the store manager who has been with Kitchen Arts & Letters for more than two decades, greeted us.

Interestingly, we just read in The New York Times that Waxman is transferring the majority ownership of his shop to Sartwell as he will concentrate on out-of-print books on food and drink and remain a minority partner of the store.

We were looking for something rustic at the shop, and spent quite a while talking about the topic with Sartwell.

In the end, we settled for This is a Cook Book. Recipes for Real Life by Max Sussman & Eli Sussman.  Published by Olive Press in 2012, it presents the kind of good eating, with trendy illustration. Each chapter is organized by a key occasion: Lazy Brunch, Dinner Party, Backyard Grub, Night In, Midnight Snacks, and Sweet Stuff.

Freezing New York after a snowstorm did not deter visitors to browse at Kitchen Arts & Letters. We saw quite a number of visitors coming in and out. It could be because the shop just had an extensive coverage in Eater: Inside Kitchen Arts & Letters, the Legendary NYC Cookbook Store, illustrated with 14 impressive photographs.  

Regina Schrambling mentioned in the Eater article about being invited to tour the basement, off-limit to shoppers. The area contained thousands of volumes: out-of-print books, rare (and signed) first editions, back issues of food magazines.

Naturally people are curious about the basement. Two days after the article went online, Kitchen Arts & Letters tweeted: “The first five customers today have all asked about the basement.”

Kitchen Arts & Letters houses 13,000 books and has been serving top chefs and their staff, scholars, caterers, home cooks, food writers, and food lovers from all over the world, for 30 years.

The shop also organizes food talks, tastings and book signings, mostly in cooperation with 92nd Street Y, a world-class nonprofit community and cultural center.

Chefs who have appeared include Nathan Myhrvold, Modernist Cuisine at Home; René Redzepi, A Work in Progress: Notes on Food, Cooking and Creativity; and Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi, Ottolenghi The Cookbook.

An exciting upcoming event is on March 13, cocktails with world-famous chef Ferran Adria. Admission includes a VIP party, an autographed set of his new books, elBulli 2005-2011 and admission to a Q&A session afterward.

We kept browsing, passed the olive oil stack, bought a post card and started towards the exit. But we just could not pass another book, Payard Dessert by Francois Payard.  Each recipe in the book is promoted as a singular work of art, combining thrilling and often surprising flavors with innovative, modern techniques to create exceptional desserts like Blueberry Pavlova with Warm Blueberry Coulis and Olive Oil Macaron with Olive Oil Sorbet.

We realized that we paid more for books at Kitchen Arts & Letters compared to buying online. The experience of being in the place where culinary giants often come to absorb inspiration, however, is priceless.

Soon the Kitchen Arts & Letters will carry books authored by its pillars, Waxman and Sartwell. The Food Arts informed readers that a book of quotes by Waxman and Sartwell, The Chef Says… , will be published by Princeton Architectural Press.

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Images: Kitchen Arts & Letters, Omar Niode Foundation