Maine Cookbook Store Owners Win Display Contest, Jet Off to Barcelona
This past weekend, Don Lindgren and Samantha Hoyt Lindgren, owners of culinary bookstore Rabelais in Portland, Maine, left for an eight-day stay in Barcelona, courtesy of Actar D publishers. The Lindgrens won the publisher's display contest for their in-store art installation Food For Thought, Thought for Food, a literary tribute to Ferran Adria. The installation, by Portland-based artists Jenna Crowder and Claire Houston, featured one-of-a-kind nature prints of various fruits and vegetables produced at Pickwick Independent Press, a fine art printing facility in Portland. As part of the installation, a short film ran on a screen in the store, and for the opening reception guests were invited to have their photo taken with selected food quotes. A short multi media presentation of the event can be seen at the Rabelais website.

Japan's First Lady's Cookbook Needs a New Title
With an approval rating below 20%, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's resignation last week may yet save his party a couple of seats in the upcoming midterm elections. But his move means that his wife's book, Home Cooking with Japan's First Lady, which Kodansha International just published, is now written by the ex-First Lady.

Alex Raij Talks Tapas and Cookbooks
Raij, of NYC's Tia Pol, Txikito, and El Quinto Pino restaurants, talked to The Village Voice about contributing to the mammoth Book of Tapas, just out from Phaidon, and the challenge of making tapas at home: "The thing with making tapas at home is that the whole experience and tradition is connected to the bar. It's a communal, convivial experience."

The Franks Are Off and Running
My favorite cookbook of the season is now out, and the parties toasting it have begun. On Sunday, Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli signed copies of The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual at a gallery show with co-author Peter Meehan and illustrator (and former Spuntino waitress) Sarah Rutherford at Brooklyn's Cafe Pedlar. And on June 30, the Franks will host a pop-up dinner at Animal Restaurant in LA. For $60, guests get dinner and a copy of the book.

This article originally appeared in Cooking the Books, PW's e-newsletter for cookbooks.