By Oliver B. Pollak
RICHMOND, California — I started writing this in 2010 on the occasion of my 67th birthday about the unpredictable nature of what we give away and then need in the future. Retiring from Nebraska to California in 2016 only enlarged the scale of this conundrum. Now almost 75 I think this story has been in the bottle long enough. There may be some sediment. During the interim I changed type fonts from Courier New with hyphens to Times New Roman without.
My library is not my life, but I do not know what my life would be like without my library. I have acquired books since the early 1950s as gifts, bookstore purchases around the world, flea markets, thrift shops, Friends of Library sales, and since the late 1990s increasingly on line. The Jewish section, including cookbooks, grew to several hundred volumes.
We donated a painting, “Fishes on Bicycles,” by the Viennese New Zealand artist Freidensreich Hundertwasser. After several months we missed it, almost sorely. I contacted the gallery, it had been purchased in a charity auction. Oh well, a good cause. I had built probably the best collection of Iowa Jewish cookbook in America, you heard right, about 20 volumes. It rests in the University of Iowa Library in Iowa City, hopefully near the renowned Szathmary Culinary Archives.
My research on Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and English Imperial History from 1970 to the late 20th century netted hundreds of volumes. After 30 years I thought I was done with Burma, so I donated my prize books to the UNO Library. I kept the book jackets for which university libraries have no respect, a subject for the future. A few years later, in 2009, I picked up the pen, or laptop, to prepare a paper on Burmese cuisine to present in Marseilles. I had to use my books in the library where some had been consigned to non-circulating Special Collections. I am grateful the library did not sell, digitize or destroy.
In 2004 my wife purchased the major portion of Neil Shaver’s Yellow Barn Press library in Council Bluffs for my 60th birthday, about 1200 books, along with the bookshelves. It lived in our basement library. Neil’s library reflects his decades of interest in ink, calligraphy, printing, typography, paper, binding, book collecting, advertising, small private presses, publishers, Paris, London, architecture, art, and wine.
In 2016 I disposed by donation to public and university libraries, sale, and gift about 1500 volumes as we downsized for retirement in California. A lovely folio ungainly size book on Ketubahs went to our synagogue. I will resist the temptation to purchase a replacement. We drank down the wine so as reduce how much we would U Haul to Richmond.
My son Noah married Erika in Berkeley in 2005. Steve, the father of the bride opened wines some cellared since the 1960s. The marriage of his eldest daughter being a fitting occasion to dissipate treasure. Out of congeniality I gifted Erika’s father half a dozen of Neil’s wine books. No regrets. Wine is for sharing, and replenishing. We suggest oenology books to each other and co-wrote a book review on Holy Land wines.
I joined the Kenwood Wine Club in the late 1970s. My brother-in-law Marty, of blessed memory, lived in Kenwood in Sonoma County. The attractive Artist Series had labels by Jim Dine, Paul Klee, and Vincent Van Gogh and many vintages introduced us to new artists. The empties occupy and enliven our bathrooms.
The Wall Street Journal Wine Club (the best Republican innovation) hooked me with a metal rabbit-ear cork puller. The Zagat Wine Club seduced me with an offer of free shipping and four Luigi Boromioli wine glasses, which were intended for a wedding, birthday or anniversary; they languish unregifted. According to Wikipedia, Tina and Nina Zagat are a Jewish-American couple. Laithwaite purchased Zagat, but the name did not have the same panache.
There are several Kosher wine clubs. Northern California has Hagafen and Covenant. The latter has two options, Kiddush and Landsman.
By 2009 Karen and I back-shelved our eclectic collection of wine glasses, including one purloined in 1966, a cut crystal glass from Saigon’s Hotel Continental (remember Indochine, 1992) with Reidel. I like French Duralex Picardie glass tumblers, they are virtually impossible to break and easy as running water to wash. But for company and Shabbat we bring out the stems.
In the late sixties I purchased the 4th edition of Grossman’s Guide to Wines, Spirits and Beers (1964). Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch (1990) resulted in a nice selection of single malts, replenished at airport duty free stores with exotics. We occasionally go to scotch tastings, and increasingly to restaurants wine pairings. I call restaurants to check on their corkage policies.
On October 29, 2010 I went to the basement and found The New York Times Book of Wine (1977) by Terry Robards. Neil had soaked off some labels and placed them in the book, reminiscent of pressed roses and heather. There were French potations from 1972 and 1974. Oh to have befriended Neil earlier.
I read Eric Asimov in the New York Times, got Wine Spectator from magazines for miles, and walk the aisles of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, Last Bottle, Odd Lots, schmooze with cognoscenti at Kermit Lynch, Total Wine, Costco, and recycle corks which I once saved as grandchildren playthings. I take my modicum of knowledge and write about wine and food. In Northern California Napa and Sonoma vineyards lay at our feet.
For my 67th birthday in November 2010 in Omaha my wife gave me an almost sufficiently ample wine rack. At almost 75 in Richmond it’s a slightly smaller rack, but the turnover is greater.
According to Yuval Atias, Oakland Kosher Foods carries 110 different types of Kosher wines. Afikomen Judaica in Berkeley claims to be “the Pacific Northwest’s premier full-service Judaica shop.” They are on my list to visit.
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Pollak, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and a lawyer, is a correspondent now based in Richmond, California. He may be contacted via oliver.pollak@sdjewishworld.com