Food coverage is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.
“Do people still make Jell-O molds outside of theme parties?”
I was asking questions while eyeing a stack of ring-shaped metal tubes used for creating the colorful, wiggly retro dish of yore.
“Only on Thanksgiving,” Judith Kaminsky replied, authoritatively enough that I wasn’t going to argue. “My Aunt Esther made a Jell-O mold. It was black cherry with a little bit of wine and raisins and something else in it that was actually edible,” she cracked.
Whether you’re in the market for a vintage mold, or a classic metal Bundt pan, or a meat-grinder, cherry-pitter or poppyseed mill — all with table clamps — or an iron to make creme brulée without a blowtorch, or a chasse-miettes, otherwise known as a silent butler and used to remove table crumbs, there’s one store in San Francisco where you can find all of these things. (The meat grinder took me back to my mother’s kitchen, where she used it to make chopped liver before the Cuisinart became popular.)
Called Cookin’ and located on Divisadero Street for more than 35 years, it’s a hodgepodge of antique kitchenware so precariously stacked, it’s challenging to move between the aisles. It includes closeouts of popular brands, like Le Creuset and Dansk, with some non-kitchen items thrown into the mix, like the stash of Pan Am–branded vinyl shoulder bags hanging near the entrance, just because they sell.
Even though chefs still come here for hard-to-find kitchenware, such as “plating spoons” — specialized tools of various shapes, depths and tips used to create artistic drizzles or mounds on the plate — Kaminsky is ready to hang up her apron for good. Her reasons are many: changing shopping habits, independent retailers being hammered by online giants, legacy brands like Corningware either going out of business or being sold and now manufactured to lesser standards abroad, and, well, she’s nearly 80. All of this is signaling to Kaminsky that, after 44 years, it’s time.
It’s been an enviable run. She’s made a decent living, selling what she described as “recycled gourmet appurtenances” in a 1991 article about her in the New York Times, taking frequent trips to Paris to add to her collection. And she’s had fun doing it — most of the time.
“Talking to the people who actually cook is a lot of fun,” she said. “Talking to the rest of them is not.”
Kaminsky grew up in Memphis, where she said all the Jews were either very Reform or very Orthodox, depending on who married whom. Her grandparents, immigrants from Eastern Europe, entered the U.S. via Galveston, Texas. When she thinks about Jewish food memories, she conjures her mother’s kitchen and the smell of roast chicken for Friday night dinner. She also vividly remembers visiting her Aunt Esther — maker of the Jell-O mold — and seeing numerous people in her kitchen frying blintzes to prepare for a party.
Kaminsky is more of a baker, but after so many years in the business, her knowledge of kitchen tools, brands and cookware is almost encyclopedic. When I recognized a plate resting on a stack in the china section as Stangl, a pottery company popular in the ’70s, and noted that my mother had a set that now serves as my “fancy” dishes, she named the pattern and asked whether my family was from Ohio (it is not). “Stangl was always very popular in Ohio. Many, many people have it there.”
When I identified the type of potato masher my mother had, among numerous styles and eras, she said, “People are very particular about those, wanting the one they grew up with because it was often the first kitchen task they were allowed to do.”
She also pulled out a flat, square, metal grid that many a Jewish cook used to shred potatoes for latkes before the box grater and the Cuisinart came along.
Kaminsky first came to San Francisco in the late ’60s with friends for the adventure. She recalled seeing Janis Joplin play in a rehearsal space, going to parties at the Jefferson Airplane house and knowing rock promoter Bill Graham, because “everyone knew Bill.” There was also one particularly memorable party at her communal house on Sanchez Street where neighbors called the cops because people were dancing naked on the roof (she was not among the dancers).
Kaminsky moved to Canada to begin a career as a professor of literature at the University of Ottawa, but it didn’t stick. While there, she started going to antique shows, and when she came back to the Bay Area she’d scour the Marin flea market — one of the best in the world at the time, she said. That’s when she started picking up old cookware. She put it to use helping a friend who threw fabulous dinner parties.
“Lorne wore more jewelry than any human being you’ve ever seen,” Kaminsky said of her friend. “He would have dinner parties where he’d make me come help, because his boyfriend couldn’t cook, and really what he most wanted to do was change the silver and china.”
Lorne’s basement was used as storage for the inventory that would become Cookin’. Its first location was on Carl Street, and then she moved it in 1988 to its current location, where she lives above the store.
As for liquidating such an inventory, she said, “What’s happening is a sale for the professionals, those who will buy me out. As for the little girls who want to buy two mugs and put it on Apple Pay? Yes, we’re having a sale, but you’re not invited.”
To inquire about the sale, call (415) 861-1854.