Customer Reviews

Sacramental Magic In A Small-town Cafe: Recipes And Stories From Brother Juniper's Cafe

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I love cookbooks. They are as exciting and gripping as novels. But, very few cookbooks are made to be read like a novel-but this one is. Before each recipe is a short essay by the author explaining the addition of or the history behind each recipe or group of recipes. Some of the stories are wildly funny, such as the author's quest for the perfect barbecue sauce...

The recipes really shine, though. The only weak part of this cookbook is the section on soup (although, the Lentil-Spinach-Chorizo Soup is one of my all-time favorite soups). Otherwise, this cookbook has definitive recipes for some popular food: the Hummus, Baba Ghanouj, and Tabbouleh. The Tuna Salad (in connection with the Tuna Grinder in the sandwich section) is stellar, as is the Coleslaw. But, the very best recipe in the book: Caesar Salad with the accompanying croutons. Once you try these recipes, you will never, ever look at other recipes for these foods! Be warned, however: Br. Peter Reinhart LOVES garlic. This is not a book for people who are squeamish about garlic!

I discovered only one of the many dimensions of this truly amazing man, Peter Reinhart, a few years ago while trying to learn to bake bread. After meeting him in his bread classes, I became a "Reinhart Groupie"---for he truly is amazing!---as is this book.

Published in 1994, he has described in vivid verbiage in this book his continuous quest for the best in all things, including but certainly not limited to food and all its components as they relate to each other and to the human body and soul.

The recipes in this book are absolutely outstanding! Peter's commentary is even more so, reflecting his unfailing faith in God, his spiritual journey, and his understanding of the communion between the joy and comfort of good food and the human spirit.

It's a good read! It's also a great cookbook with fantastic recipes you will die to try before you finish reading even one!

And if you ever have an opportunity to attend one of his classes, by all means do so---even if it's just to meet the man. You will never forget him or be quite the same again.

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This is one of my most favorite cookbooks, with easy-to-prepare, unique recipes such as tasso sandwiches and cream of watercress soup that are fun to make and delightful to eat. Stories that accompany the recipes give an added special flavor to each one.

I've owned a copy of this book for years and years, and purchased many more to give to friends and family as gifts. The stories in this book are excellent, but the recipes are even better. The recipe in this book for Tuna Salad is, in my humble opinion, the best in the world, and I wish that it would be more widely adopted (it's a little different - tart, not sweet). Other fabulous recipes are the recipe for a very garlicky hummus, the greek salad, the recipe for tabbouleh, the pasta dishes, the sandwiches, and a way to make your own homemade ginger ale.

I very highly recommend this book. I have tons of cookbooks, and this is one of my top five.

Also, I don't eat beef or chicken, and there's still plenty of recipes that I can make and love.

Reinhart has a real storyteller's gift, as he relates stories of cooking for a tiny restaurant and bakery for his small religious order located in Forestville, in the California Sonoma wine country. Funny anecdotes introduce each recipe - the barbecue sauce story is one of the best. The recipes are easy and many are fresh twists on old favorites, including cole slaw that will make you change your mind about slaw.

There are billions of recipe books out there, and if you have a reliable internet connection, you could get any recipe you wanted with a simple web search. Sacramental Magic In A Small-town Cafe reminds us of why food is more than just a list of ingredients. It is about the meaning behind the food, about the story behind the restaurant.

Written by a couple who worked for a Jesuit-based ministry, they were about feeding peoples' souls as well as their stomachs. They did research and testing into their recipes, trying out ancient recipes and new ones, looking to see what felt comforting and what was nutritious. They tell fascinating background stories about what they cooked, what worked, why people reacted the way they did.

Food is the way we connect with others, nourish ourselves for another day, This book is an awesome way to get that message.

Well recommended.

We had to give them a copy because they were begging us for the recipes whenever we cooked. This book deserves to be so much more well known than it is. As the owner of many, many cookbooks, it is funny to me that this is one of my most used. The recipes in here are SO good. They are very flavorful, with the right amount of garlic (lots), salt, spiciness, etc. We make quite a few of these recipes regularly and this food invariably gets rave reviews from everyone. (This isn't always the case with recipes from other books.) My husband makes a huge batch of the Pepper mash from this book and people go crazy for it. We actually gave jugs of the barbecue sauce from this book as Christmas gifts. The puttanesca sauce in here is the best I've ever tried, as is the Split Pea soup. The coleslaw really does make people stop eating and comment on it just like he says. This is the hummus recipe I use most often, and I also love the Babaganoush recipe.

But I am just getting to our all time most used recipe in here: the Ceasar salad. It is so delicious that we are spoiled for all other ceasar and if we go too long without making it we start craving it. There are so many other excellent recipes in this book that we have tried that I can hardly remember them all. I don't recall ever making one that turned out even slightly average. When I first got this book, I read through it and his stories and philosophy about food are fine, but that isn't why we enjoy this book. It's the amazing food.

Catholic order operates restaurants all over the world under name of Franciscan mond named Brother Juniper.

Here is little selection of everything from soup to dessert, and between. Some caught my attention that are delicious: Lemon Walnut Muffins, Tuna Cheese Grinder,Spanish Lentil and Sausage Soup,.

Received free. Likely would not have paid for it. Interesting tales with recipes.