Saints at the Dinner Table — Excerpt

…I realize now more than ever that when I pray to a saint, I need to have some connection with that saint. I have found a wonderful listener in Saint Joseph. But I realize there are other saints out there willing to help and intercede on my behalf and to whom I can pray. In my quest to “relate” to the saints, I started an intentioned journey to find a collection of saints on whom I could call. Because I am a mother of three children and enjoy cooking for my family as well as friends, I thought I would research saints that shared my interest in food and caretaking. Saint Elizabeth seemed like a good place to start because she is the patron saint of bakers and I was a finalist in the Pillsbury Bake-off contest. My middle name is also Elizabeth. Already there were small connections, but as her story unfolded, I realized she had more lessons to teach than just how to bake a really moist cake. I found a similar situation with Saint Hildegard. Thankfully, my middle name is not Hildegard, but her feast day is on my birthday. As I researched her writings about healthy cooking, I was inspired to create some healthy recipes of my own. Here were some saints that not only had some interesting coincidences with my own life, but they also had great stories to tell. Before I knew it, I was knee deep in volumes of books on all types of saints—from the likely to the unlikely— many with whom I felt deeply connected. While I was becoming spiritually inspired by each saint, each story made me think of an item of food, and eventually, I was thinking of meals I have been making my entire adult life as well as new ones I was creating that were inspired, if you will, by the saints themselves. In the end I had a treasure trove of interesting stories and recipes—meals rather. And Saints at the Dinner Table was born. What began as a quest to find a connection during my mother’s time of need resulted in me finding my mother’s soul (and all the saints she is up in heaven with) right here in my own home, my own kitchen.  While I have been transformed and inspired by many saints, I have limited this book to twelve saints of whom I discuss briefly and then explain their connection to my own life and the recipes that they each inspired…