By Bread Alone, Kendall Vanderslice
By Bread Alone, Kendall Vanderslice
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By Bread Alone
A Baker's Reflections on Hunger, Longing, and the Goodness of God

Author: Kendall Vanderslice, Peter Reinhart

Narrator: Kendall Vanderslice

Unabridged: 7 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/14/2023


Synopsis

Bread is central to God's story, and to your story too.

Our spiritual lives are deeply connected to bread—the bread we break with family and friends and the Bread that is Christ's Body, given and broken for us. It's easy to choose the cheapest, most convenient option, but the life of Jesus and the story of Scripture, as well as the substance of bread itself, shows us that there is more. In By Bread Alone, Kendall Vanderslice, a professional baker and practical theologian who spends her days elbow-deep in dough, reveals that there is no food more spiritually significant than bread—whether eating, baking, sharing, or breaking.

Kendall has struggled with hunger ever since she can remember—hunger for bread, yes, but also for community and for the ability to "taste and see" the goodness of God. She knows the tension of bread as blessing and bread as burden but has learned that bread also offers a unique opportunity to heal our relationship to the body of Christ and to our own bodies. In By Bread Alone, she weaves her own faith-filled journey together with original recipes and stories about the role of bread in church history, revealing a God who draws near to us and creatively provides for our daily needs.

About Kendall Vanderslice

Kendall Vanderslice is a baker, writer, and speaker, as well as the founder of the Edible Theology Project, a ministry that connects the Communion table to the kitchen table. She is a graduate of Wheaton College (BA Anthropology), Boston University (MLA Gastronomy), and Duke Divinity School (Master of Theological Studies). Her bylines include Christianity Today, Bitter Southerner, Christian Century, Religion News Service, and Faith & Leadership, as well as her first book, We Will Feast. Kendall lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her big-eared beagle named Strudel, where she teaches workshops on bread baking as a spiritual practice.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kaitlyn on August 20, 2022

In this moving, theologically rich, and beautifully written work, Kendall Vanderslice tells her own story as one part of God’s larger story of meeting people in bread. Cannot recommend highly enough.......more

Goodreads review by Alyssa on September 17, 2023

Kendall's memoir started off slow for me; I didn't really connect emotionally with her story. But I loved her reflections on theology, bread, and baking. And by the final chapters, I was fully invested and blinking back tears. A soothing, peaceful read for me, a reminder that God works in quiet, eve......more

Goodreads review by Holly on March 01, 2023

A beautiful, candid reflection on body image, self-worth, purpose, and hope. Kendall Vanderslice recounts bits of her childhood, identifying the moments when she realized that her figure played a factor in other people's opinion of her. Charting first her rigorous ballet training that came to a sudd......more

Goodreads review by Abbey on April 07, 2024

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! The author does a beautiful job of telling her story, weaving in themes of bread and the goodness of God throughout. As a baker myself, seeing how she connected the seasons and changes and transformations in her life, whether physical, spiritual, or emotional,......more

Goodreads review by Traci on December 20, 2023

What I appreciated about this book the most was the sense I got that it was the exact book Vanderslice was meant to write. I read her first book, too, and have had limited encounters with her on social media. She's well educated, a foodie, and passionate about making basic eats like bread a part of......more