It takes a lot of nerve to open a bookstore in this digital age, but Kimberly Behzadi has both the gumption, and a recipe for success.
Read It & Eat Bookshop, Behzadi’s cookbooks-and-more store will be a year old in November. After starting at the West Side Bazaar, last month she found a Main Street space that fits her needs.
At 2929 Main St., Suite 5, the focus is food stories, not just cookbooks. Chef memoirs, food history, kitchen romances, and culinary mysteries all have their own niches, alongside the recipe-forward how-to guides.
The fall gifting season can be make-or-break for small businesses, so Behzadi has added bookish accouterments like bookmarks, notebooks, candles, and shirts. Cooking accessories include spices, flours, and starter kits for beginning cooks, bakers, pizza-makers, picklers and fermenters.
Another part of Behzadi’s recipe is serving up opportunities for people to get out of the house and bring home a new desire to cook. Books X Cooks are real-world events centered on authors, chefs, and other culinary instructors who teach lessons everyone can taste are a key part of Read It & Eat’s portfolio.
Tofu techniques and recipes from vegetarian food truck Edgy Vegy owners Sara and Jaime Secor was the draw Sept. 8. The site was 27 Chandler St., the culinary center next door to Flat 12 Mushrooms, home to outfits including Waxlight Bar a Vin, Tiny Thai, Logan’s Bagels, and Bloom & Rose.
Where on Oct. 24, Zach Rosenbloom and J.B. Pagels of Bloom & Rose will teach you how to make your own soft pretzels and cheese sauce. The $75 ticket includes snacks, lecture, and a copy of “Let’s Make Bread,” the least intimidating bread book I’ve ever seen. Bloom & Rose is known for their knishes, but their bubbe-centric cuisine draws influences from beyond the shtetl to great effect, like Szechuan brisket and kreplach hot-and-sour soup.
On Oct. 21, The Great Cookbook Swap gives you a chance to resolve a lingering psychological drain: that really nice cookbook that’s just not for you. Take it off the shelf, out of your house, and your life.
Come home with one you like better. The therapeutic atmosphere includes amateur group therapy for cookbook collectors, and tastings of four vintages presented by Justine Powers. That’s because it’s held in her Funk & Fermentation natural wines emporium at 587 W. Delevan Ave. Tickets, $20, are available here.
Since Covid, Behzadi said, she’s noticed more young adults looking for a “third space,” not home, not work. Where they can share, learn, seek community, maybe make friends. Buffalo is justly known for nights of beer and wings, she said, but “not everybody wants to drink anymore. They're looking for things to do.”
Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday, Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday-Wednesday.
REVIEW: Over time, restaurant-goers develop a list of places that solve particular issues they face. Where can we take mom that will make her happy? Where can we host visitors to make them wish they lived in Buffalo? Where can we feed a party that includes dedicated carnivores and vegans who believe meat is murder, for as little money as possible? The last one, for me, takes me to Family Thai’s locations on Babcock Street in South Buffalo and Tonawanda Street in Riverside. (Later today, for patrons.)
OPENINGS: Taste of Bengal is restaurateur Iqbal Hossein’s fourth restaurant. His first Buffalo place serves kebabs, curries, pilafs, and more at 3065 Bailey Ave., just north of the Bailey-Kensington intersection.
Fresh-made bread and Bengali specialties are two of the attractions. Chicken roast with pollaw rice ($14) yields two chicken quarters braised to tenderness in a complex curry with herbs and nuts in creamy suspension.
Lamb gyro over rice ($13) is made from pieces of meat, not the usual meatloaf-like product, and fortified with onions and green bell peppers.
Behari, boti, and seekh kababs ($10-$14) arrive on sizzle platters, marinated to tenderness.
Hours: 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Saturday-Thursday, 3 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday. Phone: 716-322-7788.
DELAYED: Alibaba Kebab’s Southtowns opening, initially announced for Sept. 30, has been postponed, said owner Anand Kattu. Expect a revised opening date soon, he said.
CLOSINGS: Break’n Eggs Creperie Williamsville closed on Sept. 23.
People who drive that stretch of Williamsville’s Main Street knew how good the crepes and other breakfasts were at Break’n Eggs without even going inside. That’s because you’d drive by on snowy Sunday mornings and see people outside, waiting for a table.
Having lost its lease, the operation is refocusing on its 1280 Sweet Home Road location, across the street from the University at Buffalo’s Amherst campus.
Break’n Eggs will be expanding its hours on Sweet Home, said chef-owner Robert Sweeney, and a dinner menu is in the works for November.
THE CRITIC DISCOVERS
Pawpaws are the largest fruit native to North America.
Rarely brought to market, a sighting at Agle’s Farm Market, 7952 Gowanda State Road, Eden, triggered my reporter reflex.
Matthew Agle, a fifth-generation farmer helping lead the Henry W. Agle & Sons Farm, helped me get up to speed.
Pawpaws, botanically related to tropical fruits, can grow as far north as Ontario. The flesh is creamy and tastes like a banana with hints of mango and pineapple.
They are ripe when the fruit is slightly soft, and the skin may start to yellow and turn brown, like a banana. The large and small pawpaws are different varieties, both bred by John Gordon of Amherst.
Do not eat the skin or seeds. Some people do experience indigestion after eating a pawpaw, so if this is your first, don’t eat too many. If you’re curious to learn more, Kentucky State University has many resources and recipes.
The season is brief. Note that while Route 62 is closed for construction just south of Agle’s Farm Market, it’s still open.
More reading from Michael Chelus:
Bill Drexler - "Camera Guy Bill" from Hot Ones - honors Buffalo's wings in his first show [Four Bites]
Andrew also gave us a look at Camera Guy Bill's ultimate Buffalo wing tour [Four Bites]
Newell stopped by Gold Lion Coffee House on Niagara Street [Buffalo Rising]
Buffalo now has a Michelin star restaurant only 45 minutes away - Restaurant Pearl Morissette [Four Bites]
Get your concord grape pies at Portage Pie, Farmers and Artisans and more [Buffalo News]
Portage Pie's Connie Thayer told us how she makes concord grape pies [Buffalo News]
There's a new Starbucks coming to Elmwood Avenue [Buffalo Rising]
Brett wrote about the good, cheap eats at Mr. Greek of Buffalo [Step Out Buffalo]
Brian's Buffalo Beer Briefs told us of Buffalo Brewing Company's To-Go Beer Sale, the third anniversary for The Beer Keep and more [Step Out Buffalo]
India wrote of the delicious dishes to be experienced at Peking Quick One [Buffalo Spree]
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Thank you for the shout-out and the ongoing support!