Celebrating With St Joseph Altars

Every year on March 19, Roman Catholic churches and households in and around New Orleans celebrate St. Joseph’s Day. As centerpieces of these celebrations, the elaborate tiered displays of foods, prayers, and offerings known as St. Joseph Altars represent a centuries-old tradition established in south Louisiana by immigrants from Sicily. In Celebrating with St. Joseph Altars, Sandra Scalise Juneau expertly documents the stories, recipes, and religious symbolism of this rich tradition passed down through multiple generations. While the altars have adapted over time to local ingredients and tastes, most of the customary dishes still follow cooking and baking methods that remain relatively unchanged from over a century ago. Juneau traces the history and symbols associated with the St. Joseph Altar from its Sicilian origins to its establishment among Louisiana’s celebrations, then its later embrace by multicultural communities across the United States. She also provides a guide for preparing an altar, complete with recommended timelines and suggestions for physical setup. She offers over sixty carefully selected recipes centered on delectable breads, fish, pasta, and spring vegetables. Pastries receive special attention, with detailed instructions for carving the intricate fig cake designs known as cuccidati. Celebrating with St. Joseph Altars chronicles a cultural tradition that continues to draw families and communities together in a generous spirit of hospitality.

The acclaimed New Orleans photographer captures the celebration of St. Joseph’s Day through images and traditional Sicilian recipes. According to legend, Saint Joseph sent rain to save the people of Sicily from drought during the Middle Ages. To thank their patron saint, Sicilians made offerings of their finest crops to feed the poor—a display of food and faith that continues today. This beautiful custom, La Tavola di San Giuseppe, came to America as immigrants formed what is still the largest Sicilian population in the United States in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 120 color photographs, Kerri McCaffety shows a sparkling array of Saint Joseph altars where flowers, candles, and photographs of lost loved ones crowd around statues of saints on three-tiered shrines piled with biscotti, pane, cuccidati, frittate, and pignolatti. In addition to describing the spiritual symbolism of these foods, McCafferty includes recipes for the most important dishes, including a cannoli recipe from Emeril Lagasse. Nineteen recipes contributed by local Saint Joseph aficionados—from a Sicilian grandmother to New Orleans’ most famous chef—include traditional Italian cookies and sweets, baked fish, and bread believed to have the power to calm a storm.

Would you like to learn how to build a Saint Joseph Altar from beginning to end? Understand all the ins and outs? Learn Saint Joseph Altar history and tradition? Become accomplished in baking and cooking delectable Saint Joseph dishes and pastries? If so, this book has your name on it--a labor of love by Laura Padron, with contributions from Saint Joseph Altar experts and devotees in the Rockford, Illinois area.Enjoy the pictures and stories, recipes, and helpful hints, along with strategic guidelines and to-do lists to ensure your success in building a beautiful Saint Joseph Altar in your parish or home. Start the tradition, and you will see how your life becomes more enriched.Viva San Giuseppe!

Do you ever feel caught in an endless cycle of working harder and longer to get more while enjoying life less? The Stewart family did—and they decided to make a radical change. Popular Catholic blogger and podcaster Haley Stewart explains how a year-long internship on a sustainable farm changed her family’s life for the better, allowing them to live gospel values more intentionally. When Haley Stewart married her bee-keeping sweetheart, Daniel, they dreamed of a life centered on home and family. But as the children arrived and Daniel was forced to work longer hours at a job he liked less and less, they dared to break free from the unending cycle of getting more yet feeling unfufilled. They sold their Florida home and retreated to Texas to live on a farm with a compost toilet and 650 square feet of space for a family of five. Surprisingly, they found that they had never been happier. In The Grace of Enough, Stewart shares essential elements of intentional Christian living that her family discovered during that extraordinary year on the farm and that they continue to practice today. You, too, will be inspired to: live simply offer hospitality revive food culture and the family table reconnect with the land nurture community prioritize beauty develop a sense of wonder be intentional about technology seek authentic intimacy center life around home, family, and relationships Drawing from Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, Stewart identifies elements of Catholic social teaching that will enhance your life and create a ripple effect of grace to help you overcome the effects of today’s “throwaway” culture and experience a deeper satisfaction and stronger faith.

The Flockless Shepherd tells the story of David, who quietly returns to his hometown after failing to establish a music career in Nashville. He avoids all contacts from his past except for his mentor, Jacob, who helps David rise to the top of Buffalo?s nightclub scene. With new success and reconciliation with his family on the horizon, tragedy suddenly strikes, and David finds himself lying in a hospital room, nearing death. He makes a promise to God that if He saves his life, David will spend the rest of it serving Him. After a miraculous recovery, he is visited by a messenger who tells David that he is being held to his promise. Thus begins a journey that will take David from New York to Georgia and back again, touching the lives of everyone he meets along the way.

New Orleans’ celebrated status derives in large measure from its incredibly rich food culture, based mainly on Creole and Cajun traditions. At last, this world-class destination has its own food biography.

"New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories provides essays on the unparalleled recognition New Orleans has achieved as the Mecca of mealtime. Devoting each chapter to a signature cocktail, appetizer, sandwich, main course, staple, or dessert, contributors from the New Orleans Culinary Collective plate up the essence of the Big Easy through its number one export: great cooking. This book views the city's cuisine as a whole, forgetting none of its flavorful ethnic influences--French, African American, German, Italian, Spanish, and more"--Page 2 of cover.