Tangible acts of feasting and celebrating have suffused Lanier Ivester's home all her life. But alongside her love of festivity, she's wrestled with profound losses that have reshaped the landscape--both around her and within her.

These coexisting forces of great grief and great joy come together in a place called the Ruff House, where Ivester's story not only reminds us of the inescapable presence of sorrow, but shows us how to celebrate and anticipate the return of glad and golden hours in the midst of it.

Like Robert Farrar Capon's Supper of the Lamb, this is a book that defies the trappings of a mere cookbook or a collection of craft projects. It's an embodiment of a rich theology of Creation, of what it means to be human when everything is both falling apart and coming back together.