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OP: The Store Cookbook

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by Bert Greene and Denis Vaughan

Henry Regnery Company, 1974. Hardcover. Very Good. First printing.

Among the grand gourmet food shops and the cookbooks that came along with them—The Silver Palate Cookbook (1982), The Loaves and Fishes Cookbook (1985), and The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (1999)—was The Store at Amagansett, run by Bert Greene and Denis Vaughan.

Though Greene went on to write several other cookbooks and a syndicated column for the New York Daily News, The Store Cookbook (1974) was his first. The endearing writing quality, alternating narrators between Greene and Vaughan, reveals the pleasures and pitfalls of catering to the predominantly wealthy and often out of touch clientele one might encounter in East Hampton, even then. A sense of humor, as with most hospitality jobs, is helpful, if not a requirement. Fortunately, the authors have plenty to spare while touting sophisticated weekender fare like:

  • Roasted chicken in champagne with mushrooms and potatoes and a pan sauce further booze-ified with cognac
  • Herbed rice salad
  • Lobster thermidor
  • Stewed veal in creamed spinach sauce

And, of course, there are a dozen or so mousse recipes—chocolate, lemon, apricot, fig!—a specialty of The Store’s.

While The Store Cookbook seemed to fade from public memory not long after Bert Greene’s passing in 1988, we were surprised with a sudden influx of requests for the book, and skyrocketing prices, a few years ago. We decided The New York Times’ Sam Sifton was to blame for his laudatory article about The Store and, more importantly, its recipe for green tapenade. We’re pleased to offer now a Very Good first printing, exhibiting scattered but minimal splatters and a few dampstained pages. The jacket is present—shelfworn with a few slivers of missing paper along the top edge.



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