I've read Shauna's other two books, Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet, and both of them were amazing. Both of them made me laugh and made me cry, and I had a sort of life epiphany while reading each of them. Shauna has a raw, familiar way of writing that just pulls you in and doesn't make you think as much as it makes you feel. You don't read a chapter and then think about it. You read a chapter and it affects your soul so that you can't help but reflect.
In Bread & Wine, Shauna (and I can call her simply Shauna because I feel like we're best friends, or should be!) adds to her usual reflections by expressing her love for good food and sharing that food with friends. This is the best of both worlds for me as it's two of the things I love most in life: amazing food, and good conversation. In the introduction to this book, Shauna writes:
What's becoming clearer and clearer to me is that the most sacred moments, the ones in which I feel the goodness of the world most arrestingly, take place at the table. The particular alchemy of celebration and food, of connecting people and serving what I've made with my own hands, comes together as more than the sum of their parts. I love the sounds and smells and textures of life at the table, hands passing bowls and forks clinking against plates and bread being torn and the rhythm and energy of feeding and being fed.Yes! I often think about how life revolves around food, and yet the world tells me to place strict limits around my eating. Holidays and outings and time with friends usually have to do with food: we celebrate and mourn and pass time with food. We comfort and console and congratulate with food. The evidence of each of these shows on my hips and thighs and belly. There has to be a balance. And Shauna acknowledges that balance: feast, and fast. Eat, and play. And love...God, friends, family, ourselves. He made us to do all these things...to fast and to feast and to love. He gave me my love for good conversation and He gave me my love for good food. One line that made me burst unexpectedly into tears: I am God's plan A.
Shauna Niequist feeds us with this book. She feeds us emotionally with her words, encouraging from the pages and soothing us with her real-ness and just-like-me-ness. She feeds us spiritually by taking all that we eat and linking it back to the bread and wine of communion. She feeds us intellectually by challenging us to change the way we think about food and friends. And then, she feeds us. She gives us recipes of all sorts....scrambled eggs and biscuits and turkey burgers, cookies and salad and steak and risotto. I plan to work my way through all the recipes in this book, though I've only made three of them so far. I love to cook and am pretty accomplished in the kitchen, and what I love is that these recipes are elegant and guest-worthy, yet easy and do-able for even a novice cook.
Bread & Wine is a book that will often be found on my kitchen island, either because I've pulled it out to try another recipe, or because I wanted to read that one section just one more time. It is a book that speaks truth and soothes my soul, feeds my body and challenges my heart. It is real life at its best. Shauna wants us to feel and think and eat and pray. She wants us to bring our friends and family back to the dinner table and to see how many parts of us can be nourished by this simple act. In her own words:
I want you to invest yourself wholly and deeply in friendship, God's greatest evidence of himself here on earth. More than anything, I want you to come to the table. In all sorts of ways, both literally and metaphorically, come to the table.Come to the table, indeed.
