Kudos for Helen Brown

To my delight, after a long morning session cooking minestrone, I found your article “California Cuisine� (Nov. 7). The best news was that Helen Brown’s wonderful “West Coast Cook Book� has been republished by Knopf. I have long wondered why I never encounter references to her book.

I have had that book for approximately 40 years--it was newly published when I bought it. I was fascinated with it and practically memorized it, usually reading it before I fell asleep at night. I am a native Californian, and all the good foods Brown wrote about were available to me all my life.

The last time I bought this book for a young bride, it was from an ad in the newspaper announcing the book’s sale as a publisher’s close-out. My heart sank, for I thought I might never be able to buy it again. Your column was a lovely surprise.

LILLIAN J. LOHMEYER, Huntington Beach