BOOK REVIEW of BREAD & WINE a love letter to life around the table with recipes BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN by SHAUNA NIEQUIST - 4/6/13

I LOVE SHAUNA NIEQUIST’S WRITING! She writes as if she took a pencil to my soul. No doubt many, many readers feel the same way. Shauna’s COLD TANGERINES and BITTERSWEET were just bread crumbs leading us to and preparing us for BREAD & WINE. I feel as if she spoon-fed us on her first two books and left us thirsting for more. Not many can write, and engage the reader as Shauna does. Each time you sit down to read BREAD & WINE you will be nourished and loved as if you were amongst her family and friends, sharing in her life events around her table. You will both “live” and “laugh” out loud when Shauna does, and tears will surely stain the pages as you weep during her times of great sorrow. You will be hungry and fed, thirsty and quenched, and when you get to the last page you will want nothing less than to come to the table; not alone, but with your friends, family and community.

Who doesn’t want to learn to feed themselves and their family and friends? BREAD & WINE teaches you to learn to nourish yourself so you can nourish those you love, with not only food, but compassion, hope and encouragement.

“Learn, little by little, meal by meal, to feed yourself and the people you love, because food is one of the ways we love each other, and the table is one of the most sacred places we gather.”

Don’t just step into the kitchen, run, dance and live in it! Share yourself and your traditions and make new memories with each and every dish that you prepare. People don’t care how good you cook, they care how well you love them and how they feel at home at your table. Some of my greatest memories growing up were in my granny’s kitchen touching, tasting and preparing. Invite people to your table to be nourished, to be blessed, to cry, to laugh and to love until everyone is full. Use your fine dishes and your cloth napkins to wipe each other’s tears of joy, laughter and heartache, or as Shauna says, just let it all run down your chin.

“I want it all -- all the tastes, all the smells, all the stories and memories and traditions, all the textures and flavors and experiences, all running down my chin, all over my fingers.”

“What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home.”

I relate so well with Shauna and her love for food; the preparation, planning and the beauty of its presentation. Meals should be made picture-ready not picture-perfect, even if it’s peanut butter and jelly prepared with your child’s hands. No, especially when prepared by your child’s hands. Who says the most simplest of things can’t be beautiful. Beauty is everywhere and you will find it when you look for it.

“I'm a person of great appetites. I love to eat. I love to talk about food, think about food, play with food.”

“I'm never happier than when I'm planning a menu or passing bowls around my table, fragrant and full.”

Shauna speaks of sitting around the table while letting the pillar candles burn down, resting, breathing with the ones we love. What better place to be than where you are? Practice present over perfect.

“…that the God who loves us will bring new life to our worn-out hearts this year and every year, that we'll live, truly and deeply, in the present, instead of waiting, waiting, waiting for perfect.”

“When the table is full, heavy with platters, wine glasses scattered, napkins twisted and crumpled forks askew, dessert plates scattered with crumbs and icing, candles burning down low--it's in those moments that I feel a deep sense of God’s presence and happiness. I feel honored to create a place around my table, a place for laughing and crying, for being seen and heard, for telling stories and creating memories.”

Shauna encourages us to invite people to our table. Love people enough to feed them and nourish them. Get comfortable, barefoot is totally acceptable, silence the phones and ask God’s Blessings on both the food you are about to eat and the hands that prepared it. I pray your dessert isn’t some sweet, syrupy, sticky mess, but a continual sharing of stories told while the dishes piled high in the kitchen are perfectly fine just where they are. “Come to the table, dinner’s at six.”

“I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinners at six.”

“The table is where we store up for those days, where we log minutes and hours building something durable and strong that gets tested in those terrible split seconds. And the table is where we return to stitch our hearts back together after the breaking.”

“More than anything, I want you to come to the table. In all sorts of ways, both literally and metaphorically, come to the table.”

http://www.shaunaniequist.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Wine-Finding-Community-Around/dp/0310328179/