Bread & Wine Dinner Party

If you know me or read my blog, it will be no surprise to you that I devoured my advanced copy of Shauna Niequist's new book, Bread & Wine.  I'm not going to lie.  I did not think it was possible for her to match, or even top, her previous book, Bittersweet, but she did.  I've written about Bittersweet before on my blog, here and here.  It is such a special book to me because it was one of the first ones I read after a hard season in my life that really resonated with me and put into words so much of what I had been feeling and thinking.  I also previously wrote about Bread & Wine here.

By this time, you are probably sensing that calling me a "fan" of Shauna's might be an understatement.  Between reading pretty much anything she writes and seeing her on our church's stage regularly as she often hosts or teaches, I feel like I am friends with her.  Let me be clear, I am not.  However, this is part of the beauty of her writing.  When you sit down and read chapters from her book, you feel like you met a dear friend for coffee and heard all about her week.

Shauna's voice of honesty and authenticity comes through her writing in an almost magical way.  She puts it all out there--the good, the bad, and the ugly.  This is the beauty of her writing.   This time around, recipes are paired up with most of the chapters.  When you read about her friend Annette's enchiladas, you can actually make them because the recipe is included.  This brings a new dimension to the writing and to your experience as a reader.  On a side note, I've tried several recipes and a few are already in my regular rotation now including the enchiladas, white chicken chili and dark chocolate sea salt toffee.  The recipes are THAT good.

Several years ago when I read Bittersweet, a few friends of mine and I started a cooking club after reading all about Shauna's.  We loved the idea of marrying food and community.  Our cooking club only lasted about a year before people moved away and it fell apart. 

I had been mulling over the idea of restarting it when I read Bread & Wine and decided that I must.  I figured the best way to kick off the start up of a new cooking club was to throw a dinner party and invite my friends that I knew were interested in being in it.  Most of them are familiar with Shauna's writing and are hard-wired to associate community with food.

Bread & Wine has about thirty recipes in it (so far, all the ones I've tested are delicious).  In the back, there are sample dinner party menus where she puts together several recipes that pare well together.  I chose to go with the fancy winter dinner party because I live in a houseful of terrorists messy boys and jump at the chance of hosting something that is not kid-friendly.  I picked the fanciest evite design I could find and invited my seven friends.

Two weeks later, my friends arrived to a relatively quiet house (my sweet husband took the boys to McDonalds for a late dinner and then brought them home and put them straight to bed).  Thankfully, the quiet did not last for long.  My friends were introduced to each other and soon the house was filled with laughter and talking.  Over mimosas and wine, we prepped the food for the main course and caught up on what had been going on in our lives.  While we tried out the bacon-wrapped dates and Sullivan Street Bread, we told stories and took turns monitoring the risotto.

With help from my friends, I cooked Steak Au Poivre with Cognac Pan Sauce and Risotto for the first time.  We sat around the dining room table for a few hours and talked about the kids, jobs, upcoming spring break plans, and of course, we ate too.

By the time we finished off the simplest dark chocolate mousse, it was clear that Cooking Club needed to be revived.  Not only for the food (the food was so good) but for the community.  The time around the table laughing, telling stories and sharing was even more important than the food.  The frustrations that are shared, the hurts that we are processing, the new developments we are announcing, and the personal achievements we tell each other about are just as filling and delicious as the courses of the meal.  I had missed this more than I realized.  Its not just about getting a girl's night out at a restaurant (which is also fun) but its about sitting around the table sharing something you've made and working together to create a meal that is magical.

This is what Shauna's book is all about.  So, it seems more than appropriate that her book would inspire us to pursue community around the table.

In closing, I want to quote Bread & Wine:

"The table is the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children.  We allow someone else to meet our need.  In a world that prides people on not having needs, on going longer and faster, on going without, on powering through, the table is a place of safety and rest and humanity, where we are allowed to be as fragile as we feel.  If the home is the body, the table is the heart, the beating center, the sustainer of life and health. 

Come to the table."