Oakland bookstore is promoting off 5,000 cookbooks, together with uncommon and historic titles

Are you a house prepare dinner who’s been looking for a replica of “Pigtails and Frog Legs: A Family Cookbook from Neiman Marcus”? Or what about “Harley and Davidson Family Recipes” or “101 Secrets of California Chefs”?

It simply so occurs that The Bookmark Bookstore, whose gross sales go to help the Oakland Public Library, just lately obtained an enormous donation of cookbooks that it’ll be placing on the cabinets March 15-16. Followers of bodily media can anticipate to peruse some 5,000 titles, together with ones from native cooks, uncommon and esoteric choices and historic tomes courting from World Warfare II and earlier.

“We’re still digging through items that are on the older side,” says Erin Rivero, operations supervisor at The Bookmark. “For this first sale (there may be more in the future!), we’ve found titles dating back to the 1940s. We imagine there are even older items in the collection, and we’re excited to unearth those later in the spring and summer.”

The Bookmark Bookstore is positioned in downtown Oakland and, for 3 many years, has supported the Oakland Public Library with gross sales of donated books, comics, music and different media. Based in 1992 by the Associates of the Oakland Public Library, which nonetheless runs it, the shop is 95 p.c volunteer-staffed and has donated over its lifetime greater than $3 million to the general public library.

The March sale spans many cuisines and specialties from culinary masters across the globe. “There are many, many niche and oddball titles for sale,” says Rivero.

These embody “Totally Hot! The Ultimate Hot Pepper Cookbook” by Michael Goodwin and Charles Perry, “Blue Collar Food: Easy Home Cooking for Hardworking People by Two Really Nice Guys” (Chris Styler and Invoice Hodge), “How to Be a Better Foodie: A Bulging Little Book for the Truly Epicurious” by Sudi Pigott, “Cottage Cheese and Yogurt Made Easy” by Eileen Barth, “The Sandwich Cookbook 1980” by Chartwell, “Almost Vegetarian” by Diana Shaw, “Lowbush Moose” by Gordon Nelson and “The Little Gumbo Book” by Gwen McKee.

There are additionally cookbooks that contain native organizations, eating places and cooks from the Bay Space and the higher Californian area, provides Rivero. These whole over 250 titles, together with California Heritage cookbooks, “101 Secrets of California Chefs: Original Recipes from the State’s Great Restaurants,” a curated title from the Junior League of Oakland-East Bay, and “In the Kitchen Recipes from the Bay Area’s Best Chefs” (2016-2018 version).

For this sale, members obtain 30 p.c off on Saturday the fifteenth, and everybody receives 30 p.c off on Sunday the sixteenth. For those who miss it, don’t fret. There are nonetheless some 5,000 different cookbooks the bookstore is pouring over, which it plans to supply up at a later date.

Particulars: The Bookmark Bookstore is open 11a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday-Friday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday at 933 Broadway, Oakland; (510) 444-0473, fopl.org/the-bookmark

Initially Printed: March 10, 2025 at 1:28 PM PDT