Bryan Calvert is a chef and the co-founder of James restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. With James, which he opened in 2008, Calvert was an early pioneer of the type of seasonally-focused, locally-sourced produce that has come to define the Brooklyn food scene.

We recently caught up with Calvert to talk about cookbooks, homemade furniture, and the literary classics to which he turns when he’s not ensconced in historical detective work.