Our friend Kathleen lives in the LA neighborhood of Echo Park and recently tipped us off to her local greengrocer, Cookbook. Owners Marta Teegan (she’s a trained chef, master gardener, and author of Homegrown: A Growing Guide for Creating a Cook’s Garden) and Robert Stelzner sell local, responsibly grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, as well as meats, poultry, cheeses, and select dry/canned goods. As the name suggests, Cookbook offers a daily selection of prepared foods from a different featured cookbook every week; some past favorites have included the Moro cookbooks, Ottolenghi, and Canal House.
Above: The shop exterior, with produce displayed in Douglas fir boxes.
Above: The airy interior is stripped down to the essentials so the wares take center stage.
Above: A framed French activist message (translating to “What do you do against hunger? Struggle against imperialism.”).
Above: Robert Stelzner and Marta Teegan, Echo Park’s local greengrocers.
Above: The shop sells locally grown, organic flowers from the North Hollywood High School garden.
Above: A bundle of citrus wood for grilling.
Above: Reclaimed Douglas fir produce boxes, displayed out on the sidewalk just as one would expect from any friendly greengrocer.
Above: In May, Cookbook added No. 2, a storefront next door that serves as a classroom for food history lectures, classes on edible gardening, still life painting, and ikebana with fruits and vegetables.
Above: The spare interiors are adorned with Victoria Morris ceramics and Hadley Holliday artwork.
Photos via the Eastsider, Flickr, J. Ritz, LA Times, and Kathleen Whitaker.
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