Feast and Field contributor releases a new book

Published 5:30 am Friday, December 17, 2021

By From Feast and Field

Lindsay Christians. Photo by Maureen Janson Heintz.

We sit down with author Lindsay Christians, the food editor at the Cap Times in Madison, Wis. (and one of our regular Feast and Field contributors), to chat about her new book, “Madison Chefs,” which is available for purchase on Tuesday, December 21st.

Congrats on your new book! Can you please tell us a little about it?

Sure! “Madison Chefs: Stories of Food, Farms and People” is a series of profiles focusing on nine chefs who changed (and continue to change!) the way we think about Wisconsin food.

It’s not just brats and cheese curds anymore, but why not? How did we get from that to Wisco-Korean bibimbap and chefs ordering 5,000 pounds of a specialty pepper hybrid developed at UW-Madison? 

The book is about innovative, creative chefs, but also the farmers they work most closely with, their staff, mentors and the people they have inspired.

There are lots of color photos from my collaborator, Chris Hynes, and 28 recipes, all but one tested by home cooks. (Full disclosure: If you try the burrata, you’re on your own.)



When and where did you get the idea for this book?

The idea came from Raphael Kadushin, former executive editor of UW Press and an award-winning food and travel writer himself.

He had the idea for a series of profiles of local chefs in their own voice, and reached out to me to write it. I’m a journalist and I particularly love the reporting process, so I took that idea, expanded it and ran with it.

Any highlights of putting it together?

Yes! Riding on the back of the truck at Cates Family Farm with chef Francesco Mangano’s twin boys. Hanging out in the kitchen with Jamie Hoang and Tory Miller as they came up with that week’s late night special for Sujeo (RIP). Going to the farmers’ market with Francesca Hong, while she filled a baby stroller with squash, mushrooms and scallions.

And I about froze my nose off, but it was so cool to visit pig farms with Dan Fox, who could point out characteristics of the heritage breeds, even when the pigs were in a big pile to keep warm. (They really do forage, too!)

And, most importantly, where can we buy it?

It’s available directly from UW Press, as well as where a lot of people still buy books online. But as someone with an equally deep love of cookbooks and independent bookstores, I recommend bookshop.org and indiebound.org.

Here are a few of Lindsay’s stories for Feast and Field: