As many neighbors know, Cookin’ quietly closed its doors around New Year’s after an extraordinary 45-year run. One ASNA member shared a particularly vivid account from volunteering there on January 30–31, Judith Kaminsky’s final days behind the counter.
There was a line down the street: people waiting for hours in the cold and rain, drawn by a shop that functioned as much as a living archive as a place of commerce. Judith’s final customers were two women from a nonprofit grain mill in Marin, who knew exactly what to do with tools that baffled the rest of us. That was Cookin’ in a nutshell: a place where expertise met curiosity, and where every object came with a story.
Judith opened Cookin’ after leaving a career as an English literature professor, first in Cole Valley, then moving to Divisadero in 1988. Now nearly 80 years old, she worked relentlessly: traveling abroad multiple times a year to source inventory, maintaining a museum-like atmosphere, and presiding over the shop with a formidable mix of candor, rigor, and deep knowledge. Limited hours of operation never meant limited hours of work.
For decades, Cookin’ attracted chefs, collectors, browsers, and neighbors who valued objects with history and patina… and a merchant who took her role seriously. It was singular, uncompromising, and utterly itself.Congratulations to Judith Kaminsky on nearly 40 years of devotion to Divisadero and to a way of being a merchant that feels increasingly rare. And thank you to the neighbors who helped mark her final days with care and attention.