Jerry Alan Minnich, a writer, author and publisher whose work included more than 20 years of Isthmus restaurant reviews, died Friday, March 27. He was 86.
Minnich was born July 6, 1933, in Allentown, Pa., though he considered Wisconsin his home after moving to Madison in 1965.
He graduated from the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa, where Minnich met Julia Cole. The couple later married and had two children together.
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Minnich worked for the University of Wisconsin Press, where he helped guide new books into publication and published six books of his own on gardening and plant care. His best-known book is “The Wisconsin Garden Guide,” a mainstay for Wisconsin gardeners for decades.
From 1983 to 2004, Minnich also wrote restaurant reviews for the Isthmus alternative weekly newspaper. Minnich was well known across the Madison food scene and was particularly fond of Wisconsin supper clubs and fish fry.
In 1990, Minnich launched the Prairie Oak Press, a regional publishing house that he ran with his third wife, Kristin Visser.
