Renowned Chef Sanford “Sandy” D’Amato’s new memoir/cookbook is chocked full of Midwestern charm, exquisite cuisine and enough flair for foodies everywhere. Good Stock: Life on a Low Simmer tells the tantalizing story of local legend Sandy D’Amato, the founder of Milwaukee’s own Sanford Restaurant, which he started in 1989 and sold to his chef de cuisine in 2012, and which has been one of the highest-rated restaurants in America over the past 20 years, earning praises from the likes of Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Esquire, Wine Spectator and other premier publications.
Good Stock is filled with more than 80 recipes and full-color photography that supplement the coming-of-age story of D’Amato’s transformation from an Italian kid who loved to cook into one of the most well-respected chefs in the country. Among his many outstanding accomplishments, D’Amato has cooked for the Dalai Lama, served as a chef for the 2002 Olympic Games and was selected as one of 12 chefs to cook for Julia Child on her 80th birthday. This homespun Midwestern chef and son of an Italian grocer, who made a name for himself worldwide as a master of culinary inventiveness, shares his story in Good Stock, an exquisitely authentic real-life fairy tale filled with honesty, inspiration and endless life lessons.
D’Amato will discuss his new book at Boswell Book Co. (2559 N. Downer Ave.) at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
Book Happenings
Ron Winkler’s Milwaukee’s Town of Lake
1-6 p.m., Dec. 14
Beulah Brinton House
2590 S. Superior St.
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Originally, much of southern Milwaukee County belonged to the Town of Lake, but its boundaries continually shrank. In the early-20th century, Lake included Mitchell Field as well as many farm fields, but diminished further after World War II. It surrendered its lake view when St. Francis split away and became a city, and lost additional land to Cudahy before Milwaukee annexed the remaining 3.75 square miles in 1954. Ron Winkler’s Milwaukee’s Town of Lake explores the lost community and includes many period and contemporary photos of people and buildings. (David Luhrssen)
Thomas H. Fehring’s Chronicles of Whitefish Bay
7 p.m., Dec. 16
Whitefish Bay Library
5420 N. Marlborough Drive
Longtime Whitefish Bay resident Thomas Fehring is an engineer who thinks like a historian. For Chronicles, he goes to primary sources, mining newspaper archives, texts of speeches, tapes of talks from long ago and letters that cast light on the village’s origins in land speculators purchasing cheap public land (a steal at $1.25 an acre), the days of toll roads, anxiety over Indian attacks and the Victorian Gothic splendor of the Pabst Whitefish Bay Resort. If you miss his Dec. 16 presentation, Fehring will speak at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, at People’s Books Cooperative, 804 E. Center St. (D.L.)
