A Memoir for the Moment: A Review of By Bread Alone

By Mandy Crow

Sometime last year, a friend of mine sent me a text to tell me about a podcast I might be interested in, "Kitchen Meditations." Hosted by Kendall Vanderslice, the podcast examines our relationship with food and cooking, taking a look at how the kitchen table intersects with the communion table.

So when Kendall announced she was releasing a new book, By Bread Alone, I was intrigued and quickly preordered it on Amazon, planning to read it at some point during the Lenten season. All I can say is that I'm so glad I did.

In the back cover copy of the book, Vanderslice posits that "bread is central to God's story—and to yours too." Her memoir is organized in four parts (flour, water, yeast and salt) and weaves together Vanderslice's own life story with the process of making bread. Writing with intense honesty and deep reflection, By Bread Alone proved to be a book I couldn't put down.

A baker by trade, Vanderslice explores her own life in this deeply personal memoir and invites her readers along for the introspective ride. Vanderslice turns her insightful eye to the pivotal moments of her own life—the end of her ballet career, her desire for ministry and community, her work in restaurants and the fulfillment she finds in baking—and uses her knowledge of the science of baking bread to form the structure of the book. Weaving together breadmaking and faith, she invites us to comtemplate her own story while also encouraging us to engage with our own.

Each section is comprised of four chapters with similar titles (On Longing, On Belonging, On Loneliness), using pivotal seasons of Vanderslice's own faith journey to examine what it means to experience God's presence and provision, even when your story turns out entirely different from the life you planned or envisioned. As someone who shares Vanderslice's longing for family, community and a sense of belonging at times, her chapter on longing left me in tears.

Vanderslice is an honest, witty and thoughtful writer. Reading her book feels like sitting across the table from a good friend with a great cup of coffee (and some sort of delicious pastry Kendall has whipped up) who isn't afraid to talk about things that hurt as well as the things that bring you joy. Most of all, Vanderslice encourages us to be honest with ourselves and about our own stories.

By Bread Alone is a beautiful reflection of a life in progress, a faith journey of fits and starts and the process and science of baking juxtaposed against the process of learning to walk in faith with Jesus. It's a book well worth your time and attention

The Bookery Rating: 📙📙📙📙📙

A beautiful memoir that invites us to the table and reminds us that God meets us in the mundane and the sacred.

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