The Spirituality of Bread.

THE SPIRITUALLY OF BREAD By Donna Sinclair (Northstone, 2007)

Packed with beautiful photos, inspiring quotes, lyrical prose, and a half dozen recipes, The Spirituality of Bread is a cookbook for the soul, a primer on the symbolism of bread across different religious traditions, and a rich meditation resource.

A mini coffee table book in size and quality, the book is steeped subtly in religion and cognizant that God is too big to belong to only one religion. The author connects many traditions through stories and bread making.

Sinclair's grandmother made bread in a "large, white, smooth bowl" while her mother (now 93) and aunts smoked and talked around a table. Sinclair foolishly broke that treasured bread bowl on a chilly, rushed, do-too-much day. She writes, "My grandmother had died years before, but that was the day I lost her."

This book will delight both the Mary and the Martha in everyone. Each photo could be meditation; each carefully crafted phrase, a holy journey. Though Mary lacks the patience for the complicated and too fancy Christmas Tea Ring, the Martha hidden deep inside loves the Easy Bread roll recipe, which even a bread lover who stops on the way home to buy a fresh loaf could handle. It is yeast-based, but requires no kneading and takes about one third the time of regular dinner rolls to prepare.

"Bread is identity. It helps us remember who we are," Sinclair writes, echoing Mordecai's advice to Esther to remember her heritage when she confronted the king to save her people. "Indeed, bread demands peace; you cannot grow grain in a battlefield. But you can--oh yes--can distribute love with small gestures, like a loaf of bread, or smooth, white bowl to make it in."

Even if you've never experienced "the healing power of kneading a lump of dough," this book pleases the human body, mind, and spirit.