I happened to read this right as our first real table was delivered for our new home. This meditation on gathering around the table and making your home a place where you can host the people you love with warmth and honesty and not make it a perform was perfectly timed.

“We don’t learn to love each other well in the easy moments. Anyone is good company at a cocktail party. Love is born when we misunderstand one another and make it right.”

“It’s those five faces around the table that keep me sane and keep me safe. That protect me from the pressures, arrows, and land mines of daily life. And it isn’t because we do all the same things, live all the same ways, believe all the same things. We are single and married, liberal and conservative, runners and adamant non-athletes, mothers and not. Those of us who are mothers do it all differently. From cry it out to family bed, from stay at home to full-time work.” ( )

The book is written in short, thoughtful chapters that are mostly autobiographical. Anecodotes and honest thoughts from the author's own experience learning to cook and be hospitable.

There's a Christian focus, seeing food and entertaining as sacramental, but it's quite low-key. Many of the principles and stories could be of interest to anyone.

Several chapters end with a recipe, usually mentioned already - the book talks a LOT about food - but I found them disappointingly US-centric, not just in measurements (which I can deal with) but in the items used, some of which aren't available outside the US.

But the writing is good, informal and encouraging, and overall, I'd recommend it.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2020/01/bread-and-wine-by-shauna-niequist.h... ( )

Mixed feelings at the end of this one. There were things I loved about this book: how food, faith, and community flow seamlessly together. How food brings us together, how it is inherently physical, but also spiritual. Shauna put words to my love of food in a way that was refreshing and comforting. The book's emphasis on community is something I've already been pondering lately: how it's important to invest in relationships, because our souls are eternal. Additionally, it encouraged me to focus on giving my friends a safe place to fall, rather than trying to have a perfect home.

But then there were the things I didn't like: the boredom I felt 2/3 of the way through, when I was reading yet again about another amazing trip to some fabulous foreign land where they also happen to have amazing food. I certainly tried to keep an open mind and not be critical (or resentful) of the blasé way she describes trotting around the globe. But sometimes it felt a little over the top...I just feel like there was a way she could have talked about her experiences without sounding so... "Well don't you go to Mexico on a whim with friends? And plan to go to Rome on your anniversaries?"

Anyway, I also was surprised at how huge a part alcohol plays in this book. I guess I'm just not used to the concept of Christians putting alcohol at such a high place of importance in their lives. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, it's just odd for me.

Lastly: I was disappointed at how small a role Scripture, God, and the Gospel played in this story. Not every book needs to be a fountain of theological truth, but I found myself wondering at times if references to Jesus had been specifically cut out and replaced with more vague, all-encompassing "spirituality." There were so many times Shauna could have pointed back to Scripture, or connected her thoughts on food with a Gospel concept. It just seemed like a missed opportunity. Shauna alludes to Christ in the introduction and last paragraphs, but even there she is careful to keep her discussion of Christianity ambiguous. How wonderful if this book could have sat down at the wedding feast of the Lamb, digging into the truth and meat of God's work in these everyday moments of our life--with food and community at the table.

Overall though, I enjoyed this book, and it whispered to a part of my heart that has yet been untouched. I'll definitely be reading more by this author! ( )

I loved everything about this book. The style, the content, the author’s voice. I loved how the chapters were broken into manageable short stories, so I could read a bit, then pick it back up later without missing a beat. The author’s attitude about communion, community, and hospitality really resonated with me, as it’s something I’ve been thinking about on my own lately. I loved the voice of the book. I felt like I could just sit down at the kitchen table with the author for a chat and we’d be fast friends. I like that in a book.

Some quotes I loved so much that I highlighted:

“I know that there are people who see food primarily as calories, nutrients, complex bundles of energy for the whirring machines of our bodies. I know them, but they’re not my people. They’re in the same general category of people who wear sensible shoes and read manuals. Good people, but entirely foreign to me.”

“The church is at its best, in my view, when it is more than a set of ideas and ideals, when it is a working, living, breathing, on-the-ground, in-the-mess force for good in our cities and towns.”

“This is one of the many differences between our families of origin. His family believes in non-FDA-approved herbal supplements and the importance of spinal alignment. My family believes in Advil and the healing effects of both red wine and boating.”

"My friend Shane says the genius of Communion, of bread and wine, is that bread is the food of the poor and wine the drink of the privileged, and that every time we see those two together, we are reminded of what we share instead of what divides us.”

In addition to this being a jewel of a book, it is loaded with recipes at the end of nearly each chapter. Many I look forward to trying out! Read this soon. You won’t be sorry! It has inspired me to be more hospitable. 5 of 5 stars. ( )

Lovely, beautiful book about food, family, community, gratitude, and relationship with God. Fantastic book - gift worthy! ( )