Omnivore's Celia Sack Producing a Book of Her Own

Celia Sack

A mockup shows vintage matchbook covers.

​Quick, what kind of book would you say a cookbook collector would write? In the case of Omnivore's Celia Sack, the answer is a book that enables the very act of collecting. Sack has inked a contract with Ten Speed Press for The Omnivore's Recipe Keeper (a working title), a binder-ring-bound tome that'll allow the owner space to archive recipes snipped from magazines, jot down recipes, and stuff miscellaneous scraps in the odd pocket.

Sack calls it a "curated recipe keeper," inspired by the crappy keepers that've moved through her shop. "We want the owner to be able to have their voice in it, and add their recipes, and other peoples' recipes," Sack says. Designer Susan Fleming will splash the pages with images culled form Sack's own book collection: old Dutch poster stamps, matchbook covers from 1940s Japan. There'll be resource pages, too, conversion charts, meat charts, and home recipes from cookbook authors Sack knows, presented in hand-scribble facsimile. The book's scheduled for fall 2012.