Thomas Pecore Weso

press release: Thomas Pecore Weso launches his Menominee Indian food memoir in his home state at this Wisconsin Book Festival Event, sharing the stories behind the Native American food and recipes in "Good Seeds." A book signing will follow.

For Menominee Indians, the "Good Seeds" of life are the manoomin or wild rice that also gives the tribe its name. In this new Wisconsin Historical Society Press food memoir, Good Seeds, author and tribal member Thomas Pecore Weso takes readers on a cook's journey through the North Woods tribal lands. Drawing from his rare perspective as a Native anthropologist and artist, he mixes a poignant personal story with the seeds of Menominee cooking traditions.  

With humor and heart, Weso folds Reservation life with ingredients that are not in most cooks' pantries. From squirrel and beaver to dried corn and blackberries, he serves up the rich food culture of the Menominee Indian Nation and connects Menominee food--like trout, wild rice, maple sugar, partridge, and more--to the colorful individuals who taught him Indigenous values, including his medicine man grandfather, Moon, and his grandmother Jennie.

Sample one recipe here, for cornbread, on the Society Press You Tube site!  

Cooks will learn from his authentic recipes. Amateur and professional historians will appreciate his often humorous personal stories about reservation life during the mid-twentieth century, when many elders, fluent in the Algonquian language, practiced the old ways. And, readers will savor this memoir for its equal helpings of humor, history, heart ... and good food!

From hypothermia to "Hanging-Ten," a new book by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, Some Like It Cold: Surfing the Malibu of the Midwest, tells the crazy, inspiring true story of Larry and Lee Williams, the maverick brothers who founded the "home beach" of freshwater surfing in Sheboygan, Wis., the Midwestern "Malibu."

For these charismatic twins, life is a beach, even when that beach happens to be two thousand miles from an ocean. Despite sub-zero temperatures during Wisconsin's prime surfing season (the middle of winter!), these surfing daredevils have been risking frostbite since the late 1960s to ride Great Lakes waves.

This updated edition of William Povletich's book chronicles the brothers' journey to international surfing stardom. With humor and passion, Lee and Larry recall freak storms and near drownings, the endorphin rush of riding a raging Lake Michigan wave, and the wild, half century-long thrill of putting Sheboygan on the map as one of the world's most intriguing surfing destinations. This edition also includes a new chapter that brings their story up to the present.