The book stalls by the river

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.