""I'm trying to resist the temptation to pun--describing this as a rich feast of essays, or essays one will relish with delight, or essays that one should savor, and so forth--but I can't. This collection is a meal for the mind."" --Mark Galli Senior Managing Editor Christianity Today ""This is a gift to the Body of Christ--delicious prose and glistening dishes to assist the necessary recovery of our whole persons. As Saint John Chrysostom proclaims: 'The table is rich-laden; feast royally, all of you! The calf is fatted; let no one go forth hungry! Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.' Taste and see, indeed."" --Scott Cairns author of The Compass of Affection ""From the sheen on the belly of a fresh-caught salmon to the reassuring heft of homemade bread straight from the oven, this new collection by thirty-four outstanding writers opens by celebrating the sheer joy of eating, then ushers us into the realm of holy sacrament. The Spirit of Food, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields, is not only rich in wisdom gained the hard way--through the gathering, growing, and preparing of what winds up on our multifarious tables--but shines with luminous gratitude at the abundant graciousness of God."" --Paula Huston author of Forgiveness: Following Jesus into Radical Loving ""Leslie Leyland Fields has done those of us interested in The Spirit of Food a great service by collecting thirty-four wonderful essays and recipes. Her careful choices remind us of the many ways God can be present in the human experience of eating. The essays on fasting, feasting, and the Lord's Supper join others which recall the experiences of grace or the call for justice which occur in everyday meals."" --Shannon Jung author of Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating ""I loved reading all these wise, honest, and funny people writing about eating--the conundrums and efforts and delights involved in our relationship to food, and God, and God-as-food. It's a beautiful and inspiring collection of essays. I've been praying and eating better since reading it."" --Debbie Blue author of Sensual Orthodoxy "The most important act of community we can observe is the breaking of bread--the communion of the saints--and I can think of no more moving book that illustrates this integral element of the believer's life than The Spirit of Food. Leslie Leyland Fields has put together a gift as warm and fragrant as the fresh-baked loaves of bread she herself writes of, and I have been nourished by it." --Bret Lott Department of English The College of Charleston