Before I forget, I wanted to put up a few photos that I took at Omnivore Books over the past few weeks. Working in this little bookstore is so enjoyable on a day to day basis, but what really makes it exciting are all the great events that we have. We have such a great little community!

One of the best perks are the foods that our customers bring in for events to share with everyone. This braided spice bread called “Saffranbrod” was made by Robert, in honor of St. Lucia Day on December 13th. It was a dense yellow bread, filled with spices that let off incredible aromas. We topped it with lingonberry jam. And it was still warm. I ate three slices. The recipe was from our guest speaker Greg Patent’s cookbook ‘A Baker’s Odyssey‘ in honor of his arrival. The stars had aligned!

Greg Patent, who writes GREAT books about baking, including among others ‘A Baker’s Odyssey‘ and ‘Baking in America’ (which won a James Beard) couldn’t have been more enjoyable. He comes from a diverse food background: he was born in Shanghai, with one grandmother from Iraq cooking Middle Eastern foods, and the other grandmother from Russia. When he was 11 his parents moved back to the U.S., and along the way to these cookbooks he ended up getting a Ph.D in Zoology. What is it with scientists and food? There are so many crossovers!!! (Barbara Ghazarian, author of Simply Quince is a micro-biologist… and Harold McGee…)

Here’s a picture of Greg with Celia, our fearless leader at Omnivore, and Paula, lifting up the bottle of Muscat that was sent to us to enjoy. It was a Les Petits Grains Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois, a beautiful sweet wine that I sincerely wish I had a case full of!!!  (I’m thinking of all the possibilities… most of which involve me drinking it straight… but maybe a sabayon? Ice cream? Ooo….)

But wait! There was more! Seriously…. I could subsist completely on the food I eat at work…. One of our other customers Jessica has started a seriously tasty little pie business here in San Francisco called The Golden Crust, and brought us some wonderful lemon meringue to sample. So good!

I think I’m going to make this a regular feature.

Omnivore Books

3885 Cesar Chavez Street
San Francisco, CA 94131-2013
(415) 282-4712

Come visit us!