Kristin Mitchell has lived in Mineral Point the longest of the three entrepreneurs. She moved there with her husband in 1994.
“I grew up outside Madison, and my husband—his family is third-generation Mineral Point. So when we decided to get married, we moved back here so he could work for his family’s third-generation hardware store business. So yeah, we’ve been here since 1994,” Mitchell says.
Mitchell, a graphic designer, says her publishing company developed organically.
“Fourteen years ago, Al Felly of Felly’s Flowers in Madison came to me. He and his wife had a cottage here, and he asked me to take this story he had written about the Santas he carved in his retirement and turn it into a book,” Mitchell says.
She didn’t want her friend to end up with a huge pile of unsold books.
“So I created a publishing company to support him and eventually support other authors. That was 14 years ago in January, and we’ve got a couple hundred books out now. We’ll publish about 30 books this year,” Mitchell says.
Keith Burrows and his wife moved to Mineral Point in 2007. He says it was love at first sight.
“We came for the weekend and fell in love—the architecture, the creativity. It felt peaceful and quiet, like a supportive place,” Burrows says.
The scientist who "works in glass" says he wanted to make a change in his life and had always gravitated toward bookstores.
“I’ve always loved books. Whenever I travel, that’s what I look for—the local bookstore,” Burrows says.
He and his wife, Leslie Damasco, live on Mineral Point’s High Street, its version of Main Street, where Damasco, a classical singer, runs a music school.
Republic of Letters independent bookstore came to life in what had most recently been an eclectic gift shop, The Cornish Corner. Cornish immigrants were central to Mineral Point’s history, flocking to the town during its lead mining boom.
“I knew the owner of this building, and it turned out she was selling it. I thought it would make a great bookstore and it would be a short commute, so I went for it,” Burrows says.
Nicole Bujewski’s Mineral Point story started five years ago. Until then, her life was in Chicago—that’s where she grew up, taught middle school, and later became a French-trained pastry chef.
“We just wanted to change our lifestyle a bit. It was kind of a grind, and we were commuting downtown for work. It just seemed like we needed to be out in nature and slow our roll a little bit,” Bujewski says.
Bujewski discovered the historic home she and her husband would purchase on Zillow.
“So I discovered the town of Mineral Point shortly after that, and that was just a bonus—kind of like a ribbon was tied with this wonderful town,” Bujewski says.
Initially, Bujewski sold her pastries at the local farmers market.
“I didn’t know anyone when I moved to Mineral Point, and I thought I’d start at the farmers market. I started selling baked goods there. The goal was just to meet people in the community, and hopefully, pastries would fit in there somewhere. I did that for two years,” Bujewski says.
That’s how she got to know Keith Burrows and Leslie Damasco.
“I ran into Leslie just walking down the street, and she told me they were opening a bookstore,” Bujewski says.
She and Burrows have different versions of how her culinary school came to life at the back of his bookstore.
“She said, ‘You don’t want this whole building for books. You should let me put a kitchen at the back,’” Burrows says.
Bujewski’s take: “When I saw the space and how large it was, I suggested that Keith open a teaching kitchen. I went home and did a PowerPoint presentation and called it Keith’s Bookstore Kitchen. I emailed it to him, and he ignored me,” she says.
A few days later, they ran into one another on the street.
“I asked, ‘Did you see the presentation?’ He said, ‘Oh yes, I did, but I still don’t want to open a teaching kitchen. You’re a chef. You should do it,’” Bujewski says.
The bookstore opened nearly two years ago; Bujewski’s The Book Kitchen followed a few months later.
She teaches classes but especially loves having chefs and other culinary folks share their knowledge and passion.
That’s how a local cheesemaker and the idea for a book came together.
"Joe Burns, one of the owners of Brunkow Cheese, did a class here. It went really well, and after the class, Joe said he could curate, bring in other cheesemakers, and do other classes, and we just kind of thought, that actually sounds like it would make a really good book. Each chapter could be a different cheesemaker,” Keith Burrows says.
What started as a cookbook transitioned to a guidebook and finally became the story of the cheesemakers themselves.
Nicole Bujewski says the inspiration hit when she accompanied a food photographer friend, Paul Strabbing, as he visited the 12 cheesemakers highlighted in the project.
“Judy (Newman) Colburn, the writer, came along to all of the photo shoots for each cheesemaker. We just realized their backgrounds—some of them came from generations of cheesemakers, and some of them didn’t. And their stories were equally interesting and fascinating. But the common thread that I found most interesting was their connection to the land, their respect for it, and their use of it, and how the topography of the Driftless really shapes the taste of their cheese," Bujewski says. "Initially, we didn’t think about any of those aspects—people, connection to land, respect for land. We didn’t think of any of those things. And then, after the photography, that was first and foremost—we had to dig a little bit deeper into this."
Mitchell stepped in with her publishing expertise. She calls The Wisconsin Whey: Cheesemaking in the Driftless a collective venture.
“The other thing that I would add is the collaborative nature between all the cheesemakers. They don’t see themselves as competition; they see themselves as teammates, as collaborators—which I think mimics what we’re doing. Three completely different businesses collaborating on one project that will benefit so many people, including the region we live in,” Mitchell says.
