GOOD STOCK
Sanford D’Amato
Agate Publishing
November 2013
$35.00/Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1572841505
Sanford D’Amato graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1974. In December 1989, he opened Sanford on the former site of his father and grandfather’s grocery store. It has long been recognized as one of the best fine-dining restaurants in the nation.
GOOD STOCK is the story of Sanford “Sandy” D’Amato’s journey from a young Italian kid who loved food to unknown culinary student with a passion for classical French cuisine to one of the most respected chefs and restaurateurs in the country. Featuring more than 80 recipes and both vintage black and white and full-color photography throughout, GOOD STOCK weaves together memoir and cookbook in a beautiful and engrossing American success story. Sanford, the restaurant D’Amato opened in 1989 (and sold to his longtime chef de cuisine in December 2012), has been one of the highest- rated restaurants in America over the past 20 years, earning accolades from Bon Appétit,Gourmet, Food & Wine, Esquire, Wine Spectator, Zagat Guide, and the James Beard Foundation. D’Amato has cooked for the Dalai Lama and at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. He was one of 12 chefs chosen by Julia Child herself to cook for her 80th birthday celebration. The story of Sanford and Sandy D’Amato is in part the story of America’s embrace of fine dining and its acceptance of chefs asmaster craftsmen. Not that long ago, becoming a chef was considered a backup plan more than a craft. That transformation began in the 1970s, when Sanford D’Amato was studying at the Culinary Institute of America. American cooks were still being frozen out of elite restaurant jobs by French chefs who didn’t believe the Americans had what it took to create great cuisine. D’Amato, through persistence, skill, and the help of his mentor, Chef Peter Von Erp, became the first American cook at New York’s Le Veau d’Or, and then worked under Chef Roland Chenus through the groundbreaking opening of Le Chantilly. The heyday of classic French cuisine began to wane as rising chefs like D’Amato began leading the spread of “New American” dining. To D’Amato, though, the Midwest always signified home. His culinary inventiveness was inspired in part by his childhood home, located above his grandparents’ grocery store on the lower east side of Milwaukee. It was a small apartment filled with the sights of carefully prepared delicacies, the smells of rich dishes on the simmer, and the many flavors of generations-old Italian recipes. Drawing on this influence, as well as his rigorous training in classic French technique, D’Amato eventually opened Sanford in the same space his grandparents’ grocery store once occupied. Readers of GOOD STOCK will come to believe, as D’Amato does, that to create great food, it doesn’t matter if you’re preparing a grilled hot dog or pan-roasted monkfish—what matters is that you treat all dishes with equal love, soul, and respect, and try to elevate each dish to its ultimate level of flavor. GOOD STOCK combines Midwestern charm with superb recipes which will appeal to food lovers everywhere.