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# The book stalls by the river
- URL: https://freelance-desk.peachfin.site/the-book-stalls-by-the-river/
- Published: 2026-04-18T14:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-12T21:27:33.000Z
- Description: Four stallholders, eleven crates each, and the paperback cookbooks nobody else wants.
- Author: Clara Weiss
- Tags: Travel, #Import 2026-10-13 14:19

The stalls open at ten if it is dry and not at all if it is raining. Each holder has eleven crates, a folding chair and an opinion about which of the other ten is overpriced.

I go for the cookbooks: paperbacks from the seventies with handwritten notes in the margins. A note beside a recipe tells you whether anyone ever cooked it.

## What the margins say

“Too much salt.” “Half the sugar.” “Mother’s is better.” The notes are the most honest recipe testing I have read, and they cost a euro a book.