While the aroma of fresh-baked zwieback filled the air, members of the “Mennonite Girls Can Cook” blog group launched their newest book at the Mennonite Heritage Museum on Aug. 3, 2016.
Bread for the Journey: Meditations and Recipes to Nourish the Soul is the latest in the series of books from a group of Mennonite cooks mostly based in the Fraser Valley of B.C. While previous books in the series have been entirely cooking-based, this one focusses more heavily on devotional meditations, prayers and stories, along with the recipes.
“We have been encouraged by an extra measure of grace and friendship by you in our hometown,” author Lovella Schellenberg told the crowd that had gathered for the event. “It’s always so amazing how God puts things in place.”
The evening began with Anneliese Friesen demonstrating how to make zwieback—or double buns. Bread such as zwieback was “a symbol of hope” for Mennonite forebears who went through starvation and migration, she said. Russian Mennonite families survived on dry, toasted zwieback on board ship as they journeyed across the ocean to a new life in the Americas.
Several of the women then read their meditations from the book. As with both of the previous two books, royalties will go to support a designated charity. Bread for the Journey will benefit Music Mission Kiev, supporting orphans and widows in Ukraine.
The book launch coincides with this fall’s premiere of the original play, Mennonite Girls Can Cook, a cooperative effort of publisher Herald Press and Blue Gate Musicals. The play will run at the Blue Gate Theater in Shipshewana, Ind., from Sept. 13 to Oct. 15, 2016, and at the Ohio Star Theater in Sugar Creek from Sept. 13 to Nov. 4, 2016.
More on the original Mennonite Girls Can Cook cookbook:
A celebration of food and faith
A ‘cash cow’ or an opportunity to share with others?
New cookbook sells out before its official release
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