Marta Teegan and Robert Stelzner are the owners of Cookbook LA, an artisan market in the heart of Echo Park. Whipping up an assortment of freshly prepared dishes and pulling recipes from a different cookbook each week, they pride themselves on being the neighborhood green grocer specializing in responsibly grown, super tasty: meat, cheese, bread, fruit, vegetables, coffee, chocolate, freshly prepared foods & more.

Jessica at Kinfolk sat down with the owners of Cookbook LA, read the interview below….

Q: WHAT IS THE CONCEPT BEHIND COOKBOOKLA?

A neighborhood green grocer. We live in this community and there are really not many opportunities for fresh, seasonal food. We stock all of your basics: milk, butter, eggs, fresh produce, certainly – but within each of those basic categories we are very select in terms of who we’re willing to work with. We generally only offer one or two vendors in each category by design. We’re very small, we have very limited square footage, and that forces us to do a lot of the weeding out that doesn’t necessarily happen at other grocery stores. In general, the bare minimum requirement is that they produce food responsibly, that there is little to no harm done to the environment or the animals and we’re very interested in supporting people who producing food responsibly so that they are able to make a living doing this. So we definitely pay a premium even on the wholesale end, but that’s important to us that people should be able to afford to produce this food, not in a subsistence agriculture style.

Q: HOW LONG HAS COOKBOOKLA BEEN OPEN?

We’ve been open for almost a year and a half now.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND IN REGARDS TO FOOD AND RUNNING A MARKET?

We have zero background in running a market. We’re both trained art historians. Robert worked in publishing prior to this. I ‘m trained as a master gardener, and had a company for several years before this growing food for private residences but also for a restaurant, overseeing their production garden here in town. I am technically trained as a chef and have worked in restaurants since I was sixteen, but never in a full time basis, it was always on a part-time basis while in school doing art history.

Q: HOW DID YOU FORMULATE THE IDEA FOR STARTING THE MARKET?

We actually thought we would open a lunch counter. We had looked for a space in Echo Park and Silver Lake for three years, and then we were driving by here and there was a little handwritten sign in the window, “For Lease,” so we pulled over and were in contract with 2 days. We definitely wanted to work in the community we live in, and the space itself then dictated what we were able to do.

Q: WHAT EXPERIENCE DO YOU WANT CUSTOMERS TO HAVE WHEN THEY VISIT THE MARKET?

A: I would say definitely that the store be beautiful and inspiring. You know, we have curated the entire selection of goods on hand and the ingredients to cook with, and we very much want them to feel that they are getting the best in any given category. That we’ve done that work for them. Everybody that works with us at the store has some sort of cooking background. We have people on our staff that are professional cooks, to very skilled home cooks, but nonetheless that is the very bare requirement that they are able to speak at length on food and how to prepare food.

Q: IS THE MARKET AN EXTENSION OF THE WAY YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE?

A: We live our life at cookbook. We are here 7 days a week, for about 15 hours a day. So yeah, that would definitely be an extension of the way we live our life. This is, in fact, our home.

Q: WAS YOUR INTENT TO BECOME A ONE STOP MARKET FOR EVERYTHING, OR JUST THE BASICS?

A: I don’t know that we could be, given our square footage and I would say in general we are obviously very interested in working with people who are doing food responsibly but to be perfectly honest the inventory is all food that we eat, so it is very specific to our palate, for sure, so in that sense I’m not should it would ever be a “one size fits all” place. If it’s something we know and have cooked with and would be able to speak about intelligently then we would absolutely bring that into the inventory, but if it’s just some random thing that we don’t eat then it is going to be very hard for us to have that to sell.

Just because. Baumraum.

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Hobo Magazine Issue #13 adorns the lovable and talented, Michelle Williams, on their cover as well as an exclusive interview inside, plus photo stories by Marlene Marino, Mike Mills and Mark Borthwick.

The first time I made fresh Gnocchi I was with two of my girls, Julia and Natalie, in Wellington, New Zealand. We were all flatting in various places and studying at the time but we would get together as much as possible to cook fresh*, ‘never cooked before’* meals*, all whilst sipping back a couple of bottles of wine and catching up on each others latest work, play and love stories.

*(‘fresh‘ meaning we would each bring separate ingredients needed for our meal)

*(‘meals‘ meaning not just heating up soup from a can)

*(‘never cooked before‘ meaning Julia had made them but Natalie and I had not) – Think this is where I got my sous chef role in the kitchen down so good. Actually, Julia taught me how to cook many of the meals I still cook today!

I found this beautiful site today, Island Menu, which not only shares the process of cooking such beautiful foods, it also documents where, how and with whom the food was caught, grown and supplied. It’s a meal for your eyes and I promise you’ll be inspired.

So here is Island Menu’s Pumpkin Gnocchi with Rocket Pesto, Pancetta and Goats Cheese.

Gnocchi
600 grams of pumpkin tossed in olive oil with a pinch or two of sea salt and some fresh thyme baked in the oven at 180 celcius for approximately 35 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft when pricked with a skewer. Allow to cool.

Press the roasted pumpkin through a ricer or metal strainer, add one egg, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, ½ a cup of finely grated parmesan cheesee, 1 ¼ cups of plain flour. Mix to combine, if the mixture appears a little too wet add some more flour, the mixture should be a sticky dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Divide the dough into manageable portions and on a lightly floured surface roll into lengths approximately 2 cm thick and cut into 2cm sections with a knife. Place the gnocchi on a tray lined with baking paper and a light dusting of flour. Repeat this process with the remaining dough.

To cook the gnocchi bring a saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil and place in batches, the gnocchi is cooked when it floats to the surface.

Pesto
Place two handfuls of rocket in a pestle and mortar along with one clove of garlic and a pinch of sea salt, pound until softened and add a handful of toasted pine nuts and continue to pound. Once done put the rocket mix in a bowl with a handful or grated parmesan cheese and stir in some olive oil to bring the mixture together just enough to make it a nice consistency.

To serve with the gnocchi and rocket pesto pan fry a few strips of pancetta until crisp, remove from pan and chop, roughly crumble with goats cheese on the top.

Leva Kungslador. Having only been open a year, Leva Kungslador is Swedens new spot where you can find a bakery with great sourdough bread, an eco friendly restaurant, outdoor concerts, a nice space for the kids to play, a little farm shop where you can buy plants, food, flowers and ceramic studio/shop. Weekend bliss.

AnOther spoke to Simon Foxton about his treasured patch of land (about 10m. x 20m.)

“Once the initial digging over and planting is complete, I visit three or four times per week for an hour or so each time to check things and do watering and weeding. I prefer a weekday and in the evening when it is deserted.” Foxton and his partner grow a variety of produce: sweetcorn, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, beetroot, rhubarb, kale, cabbage, spinach, cucumbers, courgettes, onions, cherries, blueberries and lots of herbs. “We have failed with carrots, celeriac and broccoli.” As well as a good crop, half the pleasure of having an allotment is the community aspect. Foxton says, “We have started sharing our patch with our friends Penny Martin [editor in chief of The Gentlewoman and her husband] Barry Kelly – it’s made it even more social and enjoyable. We have lovely neighbours who are all very handy with hints and lending tools. We share our crops because we tend to get lots of crops at one time; and there’s only so much you can do with a courgette!”

Bad Day Magazine release their new issue, number 11, which features director/graphic designer Mike Mills (check out his film Beginners in a theatre near you) on its cover. Also appearing in the issue are interviews with David Shrigley, Tomi Ungerer, Tauba Auerbach, Steven Shearer, Andrew Kuo, and Martino Gamper and a joke by SANY. Done. Buy here.

The Travel Almanac #1 David Lynch. Issue 1 (Spring/Summer 2011) of The Travel Almanac explores the topics of traveling and temporary habitation from the personal perspectives of innovative figures in the fashion, music, art, and film worlds.

The first issue features original interviews and conversations with director, David Lynch; Javier Peres, Los Angeles/Berlin-based gallerist, curator, and owner of Peres Projects; Andy McCluskey, lead signer of the legendary 80′s band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark; James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem; art-star Terence Koh, as well as many other cultural icons and innovators. The issue also contains a feature on Japanese Ryokans (ultra-traditional countryside hotels), as well as personal travel stories, and reviews of the most exceptional and interesting hotels worldwide.

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Condiment — Adventures in Food and Form, Issue 02 — Spring/Summer 2011.

Condiment Issue 02 has been produced in collaboration with BLESS. Images from their collection BLESS N° 42 Plädoyer der Jetztzeit appear on each page of the publication.

Issue 02 of Condiment features work and contributions from: Nancy Bale, Linus Bill, Ellen Birrell, Elizabeth Bryant, Uta Eisenreich, Thobias Fäldt, ffiXXed, Misha Hollenbach, Thomas Jeppe, Klara Källström, Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, Stefan Marx, Amanda Maxwell, Cameron Allan McKean, Taro E.F. Nettleton, Geoff Newton, Riley Payne, Shauna T., Tim J. Veling

A new bi-annual publication from Spain. The Plant Journal offers a new look on greenery by featuring the works of creative people who love plants along with botanical contents in a simple and personal way.

A curious observer of ordinary plants and other greenery, the magazine presents a monographic on a specific plant and brings together photographers, illustrators, designers, musicians, writers and visual artists, both established and emerging, from all over the world, to share with The Plant Journal their perceptions and experiences around plants.

Contributors of this first issue are Bless, Luis Cerveró, Tom Edwards, Stephen Eichhorn, Scheltens & Abbenes and many more. Buy your copy here, or find it in the newsstands around the globe.

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