Follow Fridays: #Shopping

The beauty of being a food-lover is that there is always something to shop for and literally always something you need: food! But paired with those raw ingredients are the cookbooks, food memoirs, tableware, flatware, and the aisles and bins of kitchen appliances and tools. Dangerously for me many of my favorite places to shop for all these items are active tweeters. And fortunately, most of them are willing to lend a hand to check if something is in stock or in season before I make my way to their store or call to place my order. 


These are my crème de la crème of places to shop so I suggest checking them out not only on Twitter but on their websites or in their stores/markets as well. My Follow Friday (#FF) sources for #Shopping: 


@omnivorebooks - Somewhere amid tweets, retweets and new followers I learned about Celia Sack and her wonderful store (which I've yet to visit). Omnivore Books is a culinary book store in San Francisco. A bookstore filled with books on food? How could I not love it. Celia also specializes in antiquarian and collectible food/cookbooks she collects from multiples places, travels and encounters. Her shop is also the hub for book signings by chefs, food writers and gastronomic enthusiasts.  Every tweet about a great book event makes me consider moving west more and more. She has become my source for signed cookbooks for friends and for myself. This month I'll be ordering the Chez Panisse 40th Anniversary book, signed by Alice Waters, for keeps. I can't wait to get to SF someday to meet Celia and browse Omnivore's full inventory! 

@kalnyc - My very first culinary bookstore and source for cook books and food writing is NYC is of course Kitchen Arts & Letters. I'm not sure how many months passed until I realized just how close I have always lived to Nach Waxman's shop on Lexington Avenue. My belief is fate made me call the Upper East Side home, just to be close to the store. In the past year the store, or rather Matt, has started tweeting. It was a joyous day for me when @kalnyc joined the Twitterverse! Now I get to peep when chefs stop-by the store, when new shipments arrive and tips on what to read. Matt is also very helpful for checking inventory and holding items for me because I don't get out of work until just before they close during the week. Currently you won't hear much from them, the store closes for vacation for a few weeks each summer. Set to re-open September 6th. 
Don't miss my coverage of their excellent book sale they had this spring: Kitchen Arts & Letters Book Sale! 

@fishseddynyc - I love books but dishes, glasses, special spoons, fun mugs and stunning cake stands all hold an equally special place in my heart. Fishs Eddy is this amazing little shop by Union Square chock-full of bright, fun and beautiful kitchen wares. Their tweets are always tempting and it is very easy to get lost while browsing their website. Shopping there and looking around on line make me yearn for the day when I have a house to fill with things like this deep blue pitcher or these pretty pink tea cups. Just try to look on their site without finding something you feel a cosmic connection to and must have immediately. Lucky for us they are expanding and to move some inventory during construction are having a great sale. No matter where you are in the country (or world!) you can get your hands on their unique goodies.