Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

"Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of wine, and enjoy the friendship and hospitality found around Niequist's table. The author of Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet serves up portions of friendship, family, and faith, with sides of humor, insight, and favorite recipes, for a satisfying read that can double as a group study." - Publisher's Weekly, Mar. 26" Bread & Wine is one of those rare books that grabs all of you -- your mind, body, and spirit. Shauna's soulful storytelling made me laugh, reminded me that I'm not alone, and gave me a new lens on some old struggles. There's something sacred about this kind of truth telling. I couldn't put this book down."- Brené Brown, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead " Bread & Wine is a new book about an ancient meal, but more than a meal, a book about the people seated at the table, and about the laughing, and about the joy of saying hello and the pain of saying good-bye. After reading this book you may feel as you do driving away from dinner with a friend -- grateful and full."- Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years "Shauna Niequist's beautiful word painting in Bread & Wine is a poetic reminder to appreciate the rituals, people, and sensory experiences of our everyday lives. Her words invite us into her kitchen, and her stories challenge us to remain attentive to the many delights that complement life's hardships and the ways in which we can share them with others."- Kelle Hampton, New York Times bestselling author of Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected "No one combines all my treasured things like Shauna does in Bread & Wine : beautiful words, delicious food, recipes like the ones you jot down on the back of a napkin in shorthand, with hints and adaptations written off to the side, real-life stories, laughter. Then I read a sentence like this: "Love isn't something you prove or earn, but something you receive or allow, like a balm, like a benediction, even at your very worst," and I decide to send this book to everyone I know."- Jen Hatmaker, author of Interrupted and 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess Bread and Wine resurrects the table as the center of the home, the place where food and drink morph into fellowship and long memories. This book transported me back to the kitchens of my life --- to the fellowship and joy and sorrow of what happens when the family gathers around the table to be family. Churches need books about kitchen tables because they value the home and family and the treasured memories of family stories told at the table. -- Scot McKnight, Northern SeminaryBam! Yummo! This is a tasty and delicious book you’ll want to savor from cover to cover. -- Margaret Feinberg, Author of Wonderstruck and Scouting the Divine, (www.margaretfeinberg.com)Shauna Niequist has written a book of surpassing delight. To enter it is not simply to be a reader but to be a friend. I did not want it to end. -- John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and author of Who Is This Man?No one combines all my treasured things like Shauna does in Bread and Wine: beautiful words, delicious food, recipes like the ones you jot down on the back of a napkin in shorthand, with hints and adaptations written off to the side, real-life stories, laughter. Then I read a sentence like this: “Love isn’t something you prove or earn, but something you receive or allow, like a balm, like a benediction, even at your very worst,” and I decide to send this book to everyone I know. -- Jen Hatmaker, author of Interrupted and 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against ExcessThis magnificent book is a feast for the soul! A wise, thoughtful, and delightful read that will nourish your heart. -- Ian Morgan Cron, bestselling author of Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: a Memoir . . . of Sorts and Chasing FrancisShauna Niequist has a way with words that makes you feel more human, more alive. Every phrase is woven together in a way that inspires wonder at the most ordinary of events we are prone topass by. This book will make you hungry --- not just for food, but for life and love to the full. It certainly did for me. -- Jeff Goins, author of Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into Your Comfortable LifeBread and Wine is a new book about an ancient meal, but more than a meal, a book about the people seated at the table, and about the laughing, and about the joy of saying hello and the pain of saying good-bye. After reading this book you may feel as you do driving away from dinner with a friend --- grateful and full. -- Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand YearsShauna Niequist’s beautiful word painting in Bread and Wine is a poetic reminder to appreciate the rituals, people, and sensory experiences of our everyday lives. Her words invite us into her kitchen, and her stories challenge us to remain attentive to the many delights that complement life’s hardships and the ways in which we can share them with others. -- Kelle Hampton, New York Times bestselling author of Bloom: Finding Beauty in the UnexpectedBread and Wine is one of those rare books that grabs all of you ---your mind, body, and spirit. Shauna’s soulful storytelling made me laugh, reminded me that I’m not alone, and gave me a new lens on some old struggles. There’s something sacred about this kind of truth telling. I couldn’t put this book down. -- Brene' Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Daring Greatly From the Inside Flap This is what I want you to do: tell someone you love them, and that dinner's at six. Bread & Wine is a collection of stories about life around the table--about family, friend- ships, and the meals that bring us together. It's about Bacon-Wrapped Dates and Mango Chicken Curry and Blueberry Crisp. It's about the ways God teaches and nourishes us as we nourish the people around us. It's about recipes, entertaining ideas, and meals to share with friends and family, made by hand and with love.Many of the most sacred moments in my life, the ones in which I feel God's presence most profoundly, when I feel the goodness of the world most arrestingly, take place around the table. Something extraordinary happens when we slow down, open our homes, look into one another's faces, and listen to one another's stories around the table.This is my love letter to life around the table. My prayer is that you'll read these pages first curled up on your couch or in bed or in the bathtub, and then after that you'll bring it to the kitchen with you, turning corners of pages, breaking the spine, spilling red wine on it and splashing vinegar across the pages, that it will become battered and stained as you cook and chop and play, music loud and kitchen messy.And more than anything, I hope that when you put this book down, you'll gather the people you love around your table to eat and drink, to tell stories, to be heard and fed and nourished on every level.Includes:Four-Week Book Club/Cooking Club Discussion Guide and Four-Week Book Club/Cooking Club Menus Shauna Niequist is the author of Cold Tangerines , Bittersweet , Bread & Wine and Savor . She is married to Aaron, and they have two wild and silly and darling boys, Henry and Mac. They live outside Chicago, where Aaron leads The Practice and is recording a project called A New Liturgy. Shauna also writes for the Storyline Blog, and for IF:Table, she is a member of the Relevant podcast, and a guest teacher at her church. Shauna’s three great loves are her family, dinner parties, and books, and she believes that vulnerable storytelling, hard laughter, and cold pizza for breakfast can cure almost anything. Read more