Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks opened in Vancouver’s Yaletown district in the fall of 1997. Barbara-Jo McIntosh, the store’s owner, envisioned an epicurean’s delight, where food lovers and cooks of all abilities would find inspiration. 

Barbara-jo McIntosh is an award-winning food professional with over 25 years experience in the food and hospitality industry. Formerly the owner of the popular Vancouver restaurant Barbara-Jo's Elegant Home Cooking, she is now a passionate bookseller and supporter of the culinary arts. 

Author of the bestselling Tin Fish Gourmet, Barbara-jo served on the prestigious James Beard Awards cookbook selection committee for six years.  In 2003, Vancouver Magazine honoured her with a lifetime achievement award for her many contributions to the local culinary scene. 

The store stocks cookbooks, wine books and periodicals from around the world, including professional books and a carefully chosen selection of out-of-print books and “rare finds.” Unique and useful kitchen tools are also for sale. 

The focal point of the shop is the fully-appointed demonstration kitchen, where cooking classes and demonstrations feature recipes from new and notable books.

 Laura Nairn appreciates the finer things in life: music, art, travel, and, of course, food. This UBC Art History grad can often be found singing arias from La Boheme to herself while shelving books. During high school, she spent three Christmas seasons creating gift baskets at Meinhardt Fine Foods, where she worked alongside her sister.

Helen Lamla grew up in Victoria surrounded by a large garden, a bountiful  orchard and a family that has always appreciated the importance of good food.  Her mother continues to be an avid gardener and her father taught her how to brew beer at an early age.  It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the table that saw Helen ultimately leave a career in the advertising business to attain a degree at New York's prestigious Culinary Institute of America.

Helen has worked in the kitchens of several notable restaurants both locally and in Napa Valley's Martini House.  Thanks to her culinary experience, she views the shop as a special place.  "It's not just about food here," she says.  "It's about creating a sense of magic where you're taken care of completely - about placing value on the importance of home, community and the gift of hospitality." 

Helen's top five cookbooks and pieces of culinary literature include A Return to Cooking by Eric Ripert and Michael Ruhlman, Moro: The Cookbook by Samuel Clark and Samantha Clark, The Complete Mushroom Book: Savory Recipes for Wild and Cultivated Varieties by Antonio Carluccio, Larousse Gastronomique by Prosper Montagne (Editor) and On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee.

    Glenys Morgan found her first culinary hero close to home. "I realized what a good cook my Mom was when I looked at other kids' sandwiches at school and had no desire to trade whatsoever," she chuckles. Growing up on the family farm and eating at her mother's table also taught her that "what comes out of the garden, goes into the kitchen," a maxim that she now holds more dearly than ever. It's a message that was reinforced by travelling as a young woman in Europe and Morocco, where the use of fresh local ingredients infused her cooking with a sense of spontanaeity and flexibility that classical training at Le Cordon Bleu hadn't provided.

     The culinary scene that she came home to was experiencing "a rapid-fire era of change," as Glenys puts it, and she soon seized an opportunity to develop a program of classes at Calgary's Culinary Arts. A career in teaching and consulting has since led her to Granville Island's Market Kitchen, West Vancouver's Tools and Techniques, and some of the city's best restaurants and retailers, including Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks. Glenys confesses that her personal collection of cookbooks is "all over the map," consisting mainly of much-loved "odd books" she has acquired over the years. She enjoys reading other cooks' recipes, appending them to her own knowledge and experience like one might a "fine print" footnote.

     Glenys's favourite books include Italian Regional Cooking by Ada Boni and It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten. 

     Annie Petrusa makes a welcome return to the shop after a year of traveling extensively in Europe. The best part of the trip? “Hands down, it was exploring the diverse café and food culture,” she says. “It really made me reflect on certain things, like where food comes from. I came away with a whole new perspective on the culinary world.” So much so, that Annie’s future now includes attending the Vancouver Community College Culinary School. “I enrolled from Turkey,” she laughs, before adding: “Someday I want to open my own café.”

      Her time away also made her realize just how much she missed working at the shop. “There were so many times when the trip made me think of a cookbook or one of our classes,” she said. I was dining in Bulgaria and I remember thinking: ‘Hey, I saw a recipe for this back at the store.’ People were always very impressed when I told them that I worked in a cookbook store.” 

     Annie's favourite books include Fresh Food Fast by Peter Berley, Hot Sour Salty Sweet By Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson Dodge, Quick & Easy Thai by Nancie McDermott, and The Purity Cookbook done by Whitecap Books.

Katie Redburn is a self-confessed "voracious reader" with a special interest in food writing.  "I like Nigel Slater and Nigela Lawson," she says.  "The British really get you in the mood to savour words as much as food."  Katie has recently earned her degree in English Literature from UBC. While at school, she held a number of other food-related jobs, most recently working at Granville Island's Stock Market.  "I met some really interesting people there and gained great respect for cooking from scratch," she says.

The oldest of three daughters, Kate enjoys the outdoors, family dinners, and going to movies.  "I'm interested in publishing and journalism,"she offers, noting that the shop provides an ideal way to blend a love of books with her abiding passion for the world of food. 

Katie's favorite books include How to Eat by Nigella Lawson, The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, The 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, and The Flexitarian Table by Peter Berley.

Mark Holmes likes to joke about his many years in the local hospitality industry.  “I was the oldest living busboy at Hy’s Mansion,” he laughs. Arriving from London 25 years ago, the native of Wales came here with no restaurant experience. His first interview was at the posh William Tell. He remembers telling them: “Well, I’ve been to a lot of restaurants.” They decided to train him anyway and, much to his surprise, Mark discovered the waiter’s life suited him. “I liked the horrid customers as well as the nice ones,” he says. Unfailingly elegant, Mark recalls telling one especially horrid customer: “Madam, the wine will taste a bit different after four martinis.”