Chefs, authors and friends have sent us video greetings and reminisces for our 30th Anniversary. Take a look...
NOTE: We've been remiss in not posting some of our staff
reminisces celebrating our 30th year, so settle in for a few more as we
head towards our 31st year April 2014!!
Staff Reminisces from Alison Gorman, (Irish Alison)
I first heard about The Cookbook Store during
my first couple of days in Toronto. It was March 2009, I had recently finished university
at home in Ireland and I had taken myself to Canada yearning for adventure and
a taste of the unknown. At this point the only new taste I had actually experienced
was that of the stodgy free pancake breakfast at the colourful hostel I was
staying in downtown. A little homesick, and somewhat cold and forlorn, I
stumbled across the store one day and all was changed: a whole shop full of
cookbooks! I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful to stumble across. I
came back the next day armed with a resumé and spoke to Alison. As luck would
have it, they had an opening and after a couple of days waiting for the phone
to ring, she called to tell me I had a trial at the store. It must have gone
well because before I knew it I had been christened “Irish Alison” (to save on
confusion) and was a proud Cookbook Store member of staff.
In my first week or so at the store we
held a bread and cheese evening and I think it was somewhere through a mouthful
of tangy sourdough topped with creamy, salty artisanal butter that I thought, “this
is it, this is the best job in the world”. I have so many great memories of my
time there that it’s almost impossible to narrow them down; meeting bone fide
culinary legends like Ruth Reichl, Elizabeth Baird, and Thomas Keller. Taking
part in fun Cookbook Store events, from sampling Ontario apples until midnight
on Nuit Blanche, to helping out with the liquid nitrogen at a molecular gastronomy
showcase. There was so much passion and enthusiasm among both staff and
customers, and I learned so much from my colleagues, and from cooking and
baking for our events. I remember walking around my stifling apartment with a
bowl and a whisk in the humid height of Summer trying to coax egg whites into
peaks to make Reine de Saba cakes for Julia Child’s birthday party, and
painstakingly applying the almond ‘nails’ to dozens of witches fingers cookies
for Halloween.
But I think it was the day-to-day stuff that
was the most fun; getting to know our wonderful
regular customers and
neighbours around Yonge and Yorkville, who would regularly pop in to tell us of
the success of a new recipe or, even better, bring us samples. ‘Testing’ a
whole batch of Alice Medrich’s cocoa brownies (for research purposes,
obviously) with a colleague who would also become a great friend. Having a customer pop in looking for
something new, but not sure what exactly, and helping them to find the perfect
book. Chatting about recipes for hours on end with fellow food obsessives, and
sometimes even helping to troubleshoot cooking in real time; it was only after
several lengthy phone conversations about jam setting that I realised that the
Certo helpline is only a digit different to The Cookbook Store phone number,
thus explaining the high volume of jam-related calls. What a lucky twist of
fate that the unfortunate preservers would still get through to one of the only
numbers in Toronto that would be able to offer real empathy and advice.
Even
after nearly 30 years in business a new shipment of books would still cause
excitement among the whole staff, all other work would be temporarily put on
hold while new publications were pored over. Saturday afternoons were one of my
favourite times of the week; listening to classical music with Jennifer as we
helped customers select books for themselves, for friends, for family. Books
that would be taken to bed for leisurely perusal, books that would later have
their pages spattered with sauces, and stuck together with dough. Books that
would inspire the city’s chefs to new creative heights. Books that would help
to feed and nourish loved ones, and would become the cracked-spined, dog-eared
suppertime bibles of families.
Although I now live across the Atlantic
in London, England, Toronto is always still on my mind, and The Cookbook Store
especially. What Alison and Jennifer have built isn’t just a business, it’s a
community, filled with customers and staff members who have become friends,
across years and miles. For me, working at The Cookbook Store wasn’t just a
job, it was my home away from home, and it is still one of my favourite places
in the world. So happy 30th birthday Cookbook Store, and here’s to
many happy returns!!
(Irish) Alison
Cookbook Store employee
Staff Reminisces from Jennifer Wlodarczyk
30 years…a lot can happen in 30 years…I should know…I’m
celebrating my 30th birthday this year too! We’ve all had one (and if
you haven’t, yours is coming!) – one of those pivotal experiences that forever
changes the direction of our lives. One of those life-altering moments happened
to me the day I walked into The Cookbook
Store. It sounds so cliché, but it’s true! There is so much I could say
about Alison, Jennifer, and the magic that is the cookbook store community, but
I will do my best to keep my reminiscences short and sweet. Here’s my list of top
10 things I’ve learned as an employee of the cookbook store:
1.
There is always something that can be done.
There is never any excuse for standing still. Do you see those finger prints on
the door? The floor could use sweeping. However, NEVER EVER dust the wine
bottles!
2.
The most valuable object in the cookbook store
is…the flat, round, brightly coloured box cutter…why is it so valuable? Because
it is a rare breed that has the mysterious power of being able to disappear.
3.
Once you get branded with a nickname, it’s hard
to get rid of it (the moniker “vegan Jen” has forever remained…).
4.
Alison’s bark is worse than her bite. J
5.
Customer service is all about asking the right
question.
6.
Celebrity chefs and cookbook authors are people
too.
7.
The best workout ever…lifting 50lb books (who
needs the gym!)
8.
The staunchest of meat-eaters can be persuaded
to try vegan baking…and even like it! (right Alison?) Maybe the realization
that, just because something is vegan does NOT mean it’s healthy, helps.
9.
Always have at least one tall person on staff to
handle those pesky tasks like changing light bulbs and hanging posters.
10.
And last, but not least, it’s not what you know,
it’s who you know. The opportunity to “work” (and really, is it work when you
get to be surrounded by cookbooks and food-loving people all the time?) at The Cookbook Store is better than a LinkedIn profile for meeting
new people and connecting to people through other people. And at the centre of
the network – the magical place that is The
Cookbook Store
A very special 30th anniversary year to the cookbook store and to all the people
I’ve met, and continue to meet, in my time at this wonderful Toronto
institution.
Jennifer Wlodarczyk
Jennifer Wlodarczyk
Staff member currently working every other Sunday between her real job!
Staff Reminisces from Deborah Reid
One of the most memorable meetings was in September 1989 (I have an inscribed cookbook pinpointing the date) when I shook hands with one of my culinary heroes.
It was a quiet and unremarkable day. I was cleaning and sorting shelves when I heard the store door open and Alison enthusiastically greet a visitor. When I looked up I saw Jacques Pépin, a man I professionally adored. At that time, he was the formidable force behind two books that shaped my French training - La Methode and La Technique. I was introduced to his work by the first chef I apprenticed with who gifted me a copy of La Technique. Those books stripped the mystery from complex French recipes, through visual decoding, and marked Jacques Pépin as an innovator. He was also young, handsome, and very French.
In retrospect I’m happy he arrived with no advance notice. Still I was star struck and could hardly garble out anything of real intelligence other than my complete respect and admiration for his work. He signed books including one personalized for me.
I’ve met him subsequently, again at a book launch for his charming memoir, The Apprentice. Like his most famous professional partner, Julia Child, he remains practical, under-stated, and enthusiastically committed to sharing his knowledge and love for good food and cooking. Above all Jacques Pépin remains a great teacher and an influence of importance in my own professional development.
Deborah Reid
Cookbook Store employee from 1988 -1990 when she went off to complete formal professional training at the Stratford Chefs School.
Today she is a professional chef living a delicious life and has spent 25 years working within striking distance of a gas range. Her enthusiasm is as large as her appetite. Deoborah currently works as a chef, writer and culinary consultant - www.chefdeborahreid.com.
Today she is a professional chef living a delicious life and has spent 25 years working within striking distance of a gas range. Her enthusiasm is as large as her appetite. Deoborah currently works as a chef, writer and culinary consultant - www.chefdeborahreid.com.
Chefs, authors and friends have sent us video greetings for our 30th Anniversary. Take a look...
Myra Sable, president of Sable & Rosenfeld wishes us a happy 30th anniversary!
Staff Reminisces from Kevin Jeung
In a perfect instance of how The Cookbook Store became a huge part of my life and career, and continues to do so; a month after I had been hired, I found myself in face-to-face conversation with Anthony Bourdain. To be a part of the bricks and mortar building at the south-west corner of Yonge and Bloor is to be presented with unbelievable experiences and personalities. Whether I was walking Gordon Ramsay down Jarvis St. to St. Lawrence Market, sharing a Fernet Branca with Fergus Henderson, or running over from Splendido mid-mise-en-place on a Friday to beg Andoni Aduriz of Mugaritz for a stagiaire position (He said yes, and I am writing this piece from the stagiaire residence in Spain right now!), every day held the potential for something new, exciting and usually, delicious.
When I took a job in the
kitchen at Splendido, I maintained employment at The Cookbook Store by working
Sundays; my only day off. It goes to say a lot about the kind of environment I
was lucky enough to call a workplace for my two year tenure under the big red
awning that after working 80+ hours in 6 days, I would happily step behind the
cash register and help eager amateur cooks and experienced professionals find
what they needed. It goes without saying that working in kitchens sacrifices
the majority of opportunities you have to meet people outside your own
restaurant.
Working at The Cookbook Store provided me countless acquaintances
and friendships, whether it was Alison introducing me to some of the biggest
chefs in the city (to which many, I am now on a first name basis), or meeting
cooks whom I watched grow from working electric stoves to running entire
kitchens in my time at the store. Some of the people I met while shelving books
and unpacking orders have gone on to become some of my best friends. This is
not to say that the only great people at the store were on the clients’ side of
the counter; it has been an utmost pleasure to have worked beside so many
bright, friendly and like-minded people.
It takes a special kind of folk to
convince me to cheat the transit system to bring back a workplace porchetta
sandwich lunch from Dundas West, or brave sleet and snow to retrieve a bounty
of griddle-smashed Americana from this super-popular burger place with a secret
menu on Queen Street East.
To Alison, Josh, Jennifer, Young Jen, John, Amit, Kim,
Jessica E., Jessica B, Justine, Adrian and Lisa (and all the other wonderful
people I met along the way; there are too many to list!) it truly was a memorable
and special 2 years.
Thank You.
Kevin Jeung -
Cookbook Store employee 2010-2012
Currently working as a stagiaire at Mugaritz (3rd on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list)
PS (I was there when a 50lb cookbook was published, listed at
$599.99 and sold out instantly. Books are not dead, people!)
Staff Reminisces from Rebecca Slepkov
I began working at The Cookbook Store in the fall of 1999, as a sophomore at University of Toronto, a few weeks after I first discovered the store while walking around Yorkville with my mother. A store that just sold cookbooks was a revelation. One that had a help wanted sign in the window was a gift from god. I, like many of our customers and staff, read cookbooks almost like novels. I learned to cook partly by reading The Joy of Cooking from cover to cover when I was 9. If I remember correctly it was also the first thing I sold.
Among my most memorable store moments: The day a tour bus stopped across the street and 40 Asian tourists filed in; wrapping Geddy Lee's Christmas presents; escorting Curtis Stone to our less-than-pristine shared building washroom; exploring the creepy store basement, complete with an old, massive, octopus of a furnace; annual chip and dip day (ruffle chips and French onion dip); organizing, and then re-organizing the storeroom (and the closets, the cubby holes, the drawers, the cupboards...); the strange satisfaction of successfully removing sticker residue with Goo Gone; and compiling my compendium of The Cookbook Store operations manual.
I continued to work at the store for several years, straight through a fifth-year victory lap at U of T, and then became the employee who kept coming back: summers, Christmases, the year between finishing my masters and starting a PhD program. If I could work for the store from afar I would. Working at the store has truly been one of the highlights of my life. Placed at the nexus of the food world and the book world, with Alison, Jennifer, and many dedicated (some would say addicted) customers, I really, truly miss it.
Today I am a PhD student in biological anthropology at the University of Minnesota. My main research interest, perhaps unsurprisingly, is how diet shaped the earliest periods of human evolution after our lineage split off from the other apes. One method I use is stable isotope analysis; you are what you eat, right down to the number of neutrons in the carbon atoms of your bones. People and animals that eat a lot of forest food resources like leaves and fruit have more light carbon molecules (carbon-12) than heavier carbon molecules (carbon-13) in their tissues than those that eat a lot of tropical grasses. My dissertation research involves quantifying the extent of such chemical differences between the diets of chimpanzees and baboons and their tissues. I will be conducting fieldwork at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, where Jane Goodall first began studying chimpanzees in 1960.
Sometimes, I think
I'd rather just work at the store for the summer.
Rebecca Slepkov
Cookbook Store employee 1999
Currently PhD student at the University of Minnesota
Chefs, authors and friends have sent us video greetings for our 30th Anniversary. Take a look...
Chef Matt Kantor of Secret Pickle, Little Kitchen and Ghost Chef wishes us a happy 30th anniversary...in his own way!
Former Toronto Star food editor, author and Food Sleuth, Marion Kane wishes us a happy 30th Anniversary!
Chef David Lee of Toronto's Nota Bene restaurant wishes us a happy 30th anniversary!
Bonnie Stern, author of Heartsmart, Home Essentials, and Friday Night Dinners, wishes us a happy 30th anniversary!
Marilyn Smith, author of The Vegetarian's Complete Quinoa Cookbook and Healthy Starts Here!, wishes us a happy 30th anniversary!
Elizabeth Baird, co-author of Canada's Favourite Recipes and long-time friend of The Cookbook Store wishes us a happy 30th anniversary!
Authors of the Looney Spoons collection of cookbooks, Janet and Greta Podleski wish us a happy 30th anniversary!
Author of In the Sweet Kitchen and former staff member, Regan Daley wishes The Cookbook Store a Happy 30th Anniversary!
Staff Reminisces from Jennifer Grange
(Note: Alison's second employee hired)
The evening of June 30, 1983, was beautiful, not too hot, not too humid, so lovely that after a movie at Yonge and St. Clair, my then boyfriend and I decided to walk all the way back downtown to catch the Queen streetcar to the Beach where we lived. That decision changed my life.
We had moved to Toronto so that my
partner could take an editing job at The Canadian Press. I had done some “stringing” for the Toronto Star, had baked and cooked in restaurants in London, Ontario, had a
degree in political science. After
almost a year and a half in Toronto, I was still without a job. That night as
we sauntered down Yonge Street, I spied a little notice in the window of 850 where
The Cookbook Store had recently opened. The store was looking for another staff
member. I was elated. It would be the perfect job for me, who loved
to cook, who loved cookbooks, indeed, books in general. The next day, a Friday
was Canada Day so I had to way until Saturday to deliver my resume. I thought my interview with the manager,
Alison Fryer, and employee #2, Deborah Wightman who was also from London, went
well. I was sure that by Monday morning
the job would be mine. Monday came and went, and so did Tuesday. On Tuesday
night, I had a total meltdown, thinking that if I could not get a job at The
Cookbook Store, I would never get a job in Toronto. Fortunately the phone rang
early Wednesday morning: I was invited for a tryout on Thursday afternoon. In
the meantime, I had a dinner to go to. I
got food poisoning but by Thursday afternoon I could keep water down so off I
went.
To
this day, the first task anyone hoping to work at the store must perform is the
ceremonial tidying of the shelves. I was no different. The first thing I noticed was not on the
shelf was Marcella Hazan’s Classic
Italian Cooking, one of the first books I had ever bought for myself. The first customer I advised was looking for
a good Italian book. I knew just the one
and after asking if the store did special orders, took the person’s name and
number. I was invited to come back on Saturday.
That day I fixed someone’s glasses with a staple—I was hired.
I guess I began my time at The Cookbook
Store thinking that I would work retail until a real job came along—certainly
my future husband thought that. Instead working at The Cookbook Store became my
career, my life’s work, in many ways my community. In the three decades I have
worked here I co-wrote a book, have seen my words published both in-store and
in national publications, have been on radio and television.
I have been lucky to meet almost all of my
culinary heroes, many of them multiple times.
The first was Elizabeth Baird whose Classic
Canadian Cookbook gave validity
to the food on which I grew up. Martha
Stewart, Julia Child, Patricia Wells, Richard Sax, Nick Malgieri, Paula Wolfert,
Anton Mosimann, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Yotam Ottolenghi,
Sami Tamimi , Feran Adria, Magnus Nilsson, and countless others have passed
through our doors.
The pleasure has not just been about
meeting international culinary bright lights. It has been as much about
watching 17 year old children enter culinary programmes such as the one at
George Brown College and seeing them evolve into mature chefs both in Canada
and abroad.
We have had an extraordinary group of
customers: anonymous home cooks, music stars both classical and pop, actors
from both stage and screen, academics, they have all come together for the joy
of cooking.
We have also had an unusual group of
coworkers. If there is any recurring
theme it is that lawyers and musicians really love food—and alcohol. Many have become close friends rather than
just coworkers even as they have turned into food editors, lawyers, bakers, the
assistant director of international human protection at the United Nations, university
professors, a medical student in Dublin.
Our customers and co-workers have
celebrated with us as we built families and been there as those families
changed in ways we might never have imagined, as we have lost family and
friends—as we are there for them. The
Cookbook Store as a community hub really signifies for me the power of food to
unite.
Jennifer Grange
Cookbook Store employee from July 1983 to present
Jennifer Grange
Cookbook Store employee from July 1983 to present
Staff Reminisces from Deborah Wightman
(Note: Deborah was the first employee hired by Alison in 1983)
Wow 30 years, hard to believe that it has been that length
of time since I first knocked on the door of The Cookbook Store to apply for a
sales position in 1983. I remember having a great conversation with Alison who
would be the manager of the store and recall wishing them all the best as it
looked like it would be a fun place to work!
A few days later I got the call that I was hired as Alison's first employee
ever and so began a flurry of work to get the store ready to open its doors on
a cool Easter Monday in April 1983.
The store and the friends and acquaintances that I met have
been a part of my life ever since and I have vivid memories from my time
working in the store and then being out with my colleagues at various book,
food, travel and wine inspired events.
How can I forget the time on a busy December morning, being
on the phone with a customer, only to look up and see a car coming slowly and
inexorably towards me through the front window.
To this day Alison likes to joke she doesn't know how I jumped backwards
so far and then calmly told the customer on the phone I would have to call back
as we had to deal with a car in the store.
Then there was all the food when we started hosting book
signings. At first we didn't keep a camera handy so unfortunately we
don't have those early photos of our first signing - Rose Murray's Vegetable Cookbook or the fabulous feast that Jan and Jennifer put on when Martha Stewart came
to town to promote Entertaining. Martha
was lovely to chat with as this was before the whole domestic goddess / convicted felon thing and yes I still
keep my autographed copy of Entertaining in my kitchen though I haven't made
anything from the book in about 25 years. I
am much more likely to make something from a Rose Murray cookbook as much more practical for me!
I also loved how The Cookbook Store staff would go out to
restaurants with the goal to try almost everything on the menu and then pass the plates around
to share. Today I am envious, as being mom to two teenaged
kids with busy schedules and a member of a golf club with a food & beverage minimum to spend, this has
severely cut into my restaurant hopping time, sigh. Instead I now have to live vicariously
through Alison's retelling of great restaurant meals!
Through the years while my visits to the store have lessened
as life keeps me busy, I still come in
before Christmas to buy my fix of cook books and if I am in the area shopping I love to stop for a chat with Alison
and Jennifer, and best of all Alison and I have been friends ever since she
first hired me on, though she does tell me the other candidate she was
considering would have likely worked out as well!
So back to my comment about my first impressions of Alison
being great to talk to and The Cookbook Store being a fun place to work? As
accurate today as they were 30 years ago!
Congrats Alison to you, Jennifer, Josh, Barbara and all the other
great folks in the last 30 years who have made the store the great experience that it
remains today.
Deborah Wightman
Cookbook Store employee #2 from 1983 - 1985
Currently working in the banking community
Reminisces from Barbara Caffery........original co-founder of The Cookbook Store
I have a confession to make. I am a recipe girl. If truth be
told, there is very little creativity in my kitchen, unless you call an extra
tablespoon of Worcestershire in the pot roast creative. Perhaps this is a
product of childhood where all good things came from recipes on the back of
boxes: Lipton soup meatloaf and Duncan Hines cakes. Perhaps it was natural that
I should want to surround myself with thousand of recipes, millions of recipes
and those who knew how to make them.
The making of The Cookbook Store was completely haphazard. I
have a strange habit of hitting on projects that I cannot drop. An idea will strike
me that seems so natural and exciting that it just has to happen. I sense that
I have been let in on a preordained secret, a calling that is mine to fulfil. This happened in 1983 when I headed towards my
favourite store, Books for Cooks, and found locked doors and a sign with a receiver’s
phone number that I scribbled on a stray piece of paper. During my day I had occasion
to ask a lawyer what a receiver was. “Just call the number and ask them what
the deal is” was the reply and so I did. It seems that I was the only one who
called as they gave me the lease and the few remaining books and suddenly, with
the blessing and support of my husband, an original foodie, I was a book store
owner. As with many of my impossible projects in life, I was faced with the now
what?
The now what turned into a whirlwind of cracking open the
yellow pages and calling each publisher from A-Z, asking for help from family
and friends and putting an ad in the Toronto Star for a store manger. And there
in the glow of the empty shelved store I interviewed a girl, yes she was only a
girl, who convinced me of her capabilities. I had choices: middle aged women
with book store experience, young chefs with business backgrounds, experienced
editors. But this girl, this blond Alison, was the one for me. And from this fortuitous choice came the
wise, white-thumbed Jennifer, the tattooed OCAD girls, the cooking school
wonders and the serious law students, food lovers all. And over those many
years we saw each other through real life: births, deaths, marriages and their
endings, celebrations. This store was as warm as its raspberry wallpaper. It
welcomed you.
This inviting, energetic place became a haven for chefs,
home cooks, restaurateurs, babies in strollers and stumbling toddlers. There
was always laughter inside when you opened the door, even on the coldest days.
There was always someone who knew the best beef Wellington recipe. As time went
along there were glory days: the gracious Julia Child not once but twice,
Martha Stewart with her footrest pillow, Joshua Wesson of Red Wine with Fish fame ruminating over the Zen aspects of curling.
This store has staying power. You cannot count the number of
hairdressers, coffee shops and sandwich joints that have come and gone in the
neighbourhood. And yet this store lives on in these uneasy times of bookstores
turned gift shops, of online recipes, of paperless books, of cooking shows and
takeout. But here in the shelves of a beautiful idea you can browse the many
recipes, get advice from the experts, chat about the new restaurants in the
city, share a great meal that you are proud of. And if you fear that this may
be a dying entity, take time to listen to the whispers of those young people
who believe in well made local food, farmer’s markets and truck food made
fresh. This is the future that holds our hopes and The Cookbook Store is a very
real part of it.
Reminisces from Josh Josephson
original co-founder of The Cookbook Store and present owner.
I am an unabashed lover of cook books as is Barbara Caffery. My partner in starting in The Cookbook Store back, way back in 1983.
The Cookbook Store began because there was an opportunity for Barbara and I to take over from the existing "Books For Cooks", which was struggling. I loved the idea of establishing a wonderful store that would be a major resource for cook books. Barbara simply loved the idea of being in the book business and cook books added a note of excitement for her, as well as fueling her passion for baking.
Once we had committed ourselves to the idea, Barbara became seriously involved, first looking to hire someone to operate the store day to day. She discovered Alison Fryer and was delighted to be working with Alison. Right from the beginning they were always on the same page. I remember the early excitement in our planning the design and the colours of the store, especially the lengthy time choosing the "Cookbook Store red". And the logo of the chef's hat sitting on top of books which I came up with on a dinner table no less! We still use an updated version of the logo to this day.
In the early years, I was busy traveling extensively because of my work in the eye care field, and then busy with patients when I was in Toronto at our practice, so at the start I was giving financial support and encouragement. In the beginning Barbara and Alison did all the work of running the store and coming up with ideas for events and promotions. On one of the few free days she had from her practice Barbara would put in a full day Saturday, at the store, where she loved engaging with customers and talking about food, cooking and books.
Those early days were exciting times, especially when we had the chance to enjoy the company of many emerging special chefs and authors, such as Martha Stewart, Gordon Ramsay, Jacques Pepin and our times with the icon, Julia Child.
Now we entertain international superstars such as Rene Redzepi, Feran Adria and Thomas Keller but we always remember those early days and never forget those who made it all possible.
Josh
Launching our 30th Anniversary Reminisces!
Today we launch a new feature on our blog and it comes from our staff past and present. I can say in all honesty we have had the most interesting, engaging and fun staff over the last 30 years. Many have gone on to careers in law, publishing, teaching, film, medicine and of course the restaurant and culinary world.
Sometimes I hire because of a person's personality even though they have no retail experience. Sometimes we take on students because they need a break from their studies once a week. Once we hired a delightful gal from New Zealand on condition she brought her Westie dog with her, a mascot for the store if you like, and our blood pressure went down! We've taken those on work visas from Ireland, Scotland, England, and enjoyed watching them explore Toronto.
Most importantly we all have one common denominator, we like food, we like to eat, and we like to talk about it.
To all the staff over the last 30 years thank you for you commitment, your sense of humour, all the edible treats, your lifting of heavy boxes; you make coming to work not seem like work at all.
Over the next few weeks we will be rolling out reminisces from former staff we have been able to track down, so keep checking in with us and see who is talking about their time working at The Cookbook Store and where they are now.
Alison Fryer
Cookbook Store employee #1 since March 1983
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