A virtual author visit with Lindsay Christians and Francesca Hong. Hong is a second-generation Wisconsinite, mother, community organizer and service industry worker Madison, Wisconsin. She cooked at many local restaurants, including Brasserie V, Restaurant Magnus, La Brioche True Food and Graze, before becoming executive chef at Shinji Muramoto’s 43 North. She and Matt Morris opened Morris Ramen in downtown Madison in 2016, the same year she co-founded the Culinary Ladies Collective with Tami Lax and Laila Borokhim. In 2020, Hong was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly to represent the 76th District, making her Wisconsin’s first Asian American representative.

Madison is an essential player in Wisconsin’s food culture. Home to the nation’s largest weekly farm market, it is also a launchpad and destination for chefs with a deep connection to local food.

Delving into the stories behind that food, Lindsay Christians began working on a series of chef profiles in 2017, long before a pandemic shifted the restaurant landscape indefinitely.

Christians's command of both the light and the substantial is key to making the newly released "Madison Chefs" the thoroughly engaging book that it is. "Madison Chefs" is a series of rich profiles of eight of Madison's leading chefs, illustrated by the gimlet-eyed photography of Chris Hynes. It turns on big personalities ... but it also revolves around big, bright flavors and culinary leaps of imagination, and those come through equally vividly in anecdotes, photos, and recipes.

A reader of “Madison Chefs” becomes aware not just of eight individual stories, but of the complex networks of friends, family, mentors, rivals, and apprentices who support the leading players.

Madison has a diverse and growing food scene. We learn more about the people and places that make it unique.

To kick off the new year, Monday host Patty Peltekos hones in on the local food scene with Lindsay Christians, food editor and arts writer at the Cap Times and author of the new book Madison Chefs: Stories of Food, Farms, and People.

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.

Beautifully and profusely illustrated throughout with the full color photography of Chris Hynes, "Madison Chefs: Stories of Food, Farms, and People" is an exceptionally well written and informative 'armchair travelers' guide to fine cuisine -- Madison, Wisconsin style. Informed and informative, and one that could well serve as a template for similar culinary volumes of other major American cities, "Madison Chefs" offers a unique perspective and will prove to be a welcome addition to personal, professional, and community library Culinary Arts & Travel collections.

“Madison Chefs: Stories of Food, Farms, and People” highlights nine local chefs who re-imagined what Wisconsin food could be, from New Jersey-influenced farm-focused pizza to Wisconsin-style bibimbap.

Lindsay Christians, food editor and arts writer at The Capital Times, has authored Madison Chefs: Stories of Food, Farms, and People, set to come out Dec. 21. Christians takes readers on an in-depth look at nine Madison-area chefs and showcases why the city endures as a culinary gem.