Eating Heaven: Spirituality at the Table (Acorn Press, 2013)

“In a highly readable blend of the anecdotal and the scholarly, Simon Carey Holt has demonstrated why ‘grazing with the herd’ is such a universal human practice. Our nature is relentlessly, essentially social, and the table – whether in cafe, home or church – is the place where our need of each other is most poignantly expressed.” Hugh Mackay, social researcher and author

“Eating Heaven is a soulful reflection by a man who savours Melbourne as a city. He explores it through the way people share food and table together. Through stories, reflections and recipes, this book warms the heart, feeds the body and nourishes the soul.” Tim Costello, CEO World Vision Australia

“Who doesn’t have a chequered relationship with food? Buying it, eating it, cleaning up after it. We live in a culture increasingly obsessed with ‘food porn’ but divorced from an awareness of food as a daily ritual of connection and meaning. Simon Holt cuts through the froth and bubble to sit us down at a series of tables in which the gathered experience of sharing a meal is the key to reflecting on the good life. Family, culture, community, and place are  illuminated through the lens of a coffee, a meal, a feast. Eating Heaven manages to simultaneously ground and elevate, bringing the sacred back into the everyday. It’s a book for everyone who eats and wants to think a little about this daily, often unexamined, activity.  Eating Heaven will restore your faith in food and feed your faith.” Lin Hatfield Dodds, National Director, UnitingCare Australia

“This easy-to-read commentary on the everyday ritual of eating has evoked memories I’d long forgotten and simultaneously allowed me to sit at others’ tables for a while.  I’ve pondered the relationship between food and community, questioned my approach to the tables at which I sit, felt the warmth of each eating experience leap out from the pages, and reveled in the ‘realness’ of it all.” Kate Bracks, Masterchef Australia 2011

Eating Heaven can be ordered directly through Acorn Press