Simon Davies and Vaughan Mossop founded Somekind Press last March in Australia as COVID-19 rules started to threaten the restaurant industry. The independent publisher crowdfunds mini-cookbooks featuring local restaurants to help the industry stay alive. Books are approximately 100 pages, with illustrations, recipes and stories. Their second wave of books, “Takeaway LA,” features some of the best of our local restaurants. La Beat favorite Holbox will be presenting its first cookbook and we are more than excited.
In 2017, Gilberto Cetina Jr. opened Holbox (pronounced HolBOSH), a Yucatan-flavored seafood counter located next to Cetina’s longstanding family market stall, Chichen Itza, in the Mercado Paloma, a community-focused food hall near USC. His mastery of intense flavors that still allow the super-fresh seafood to shine through makes his stand one of our favorite spots.
Kato, Sonoratown, Bub & Gramma’s Bread, Hop Woo, and porridge + puffs are also being featured in this batch of cookbooks. Pre-order a $20 book, and if the title sells 100 copies within 10 days, the project is considered financially viable and the book will go to print. You have one week left to pre-order these exciting, hyperlocal cookbooks. If they are printed, the books will be shipped out in May 2021. If the preorder quota isn’t met, all funds will still be donated to the venue. Since starting its Take away book series, Somekind Press has launched 17 books. They have all been successfully funded, and have raised more than $100,000 for participating establishments.
So take advantage of this opportunity to keep LA’s restaurant community thriving and pre-order the cookbook from Holbox, or Hop Woo, or heck, collect ’em all!
