Klein - The gluten-free Italian vegetarian kitchen: more than 225 meat-free, wheat-free, and gluten-free recipes for delicious and nutricious italian dishes

When I put my seventh book to bed, I presumed it would be my last. After all, there are seven days in the week, the seventh being the day of rest; seven deadly sins, the seventh sometimes listed as the sin of gluttony (These are all cookbooks, mind you, with a combined total of more than 1,600 recipes!); and seven sacraments, the seventh known in my childhood as the Last Ritesall signs forecasting retirement at the very least. But before the ink on The Chinese Vegan Kitchen was barely dry, Providence began hinting not so fast... On the first Sunday of November 2012, I was received as a novice oblate of St. Anselms Abbey in Washington, DC. Before my blessing, I was handed a copy of The Rule of St. Benedict and noted with delight our shared publisher, Penguin. An individual familiar with the acknowledgment of St. Francis in one of my previous books, Vegan Italiano, blithely suggested that, for the sake of Benedictine balance, I write a new cookbook and dedicate it to my other favorite Italian saint. I replied that I had no chancemy publisher would never consider another Italian cookbook written by the same author, especially an author who is not even Italian. Besides, one was enough. Three days later, I opened an email from my publisher asking if I would be interested in writing an Italian cookbook for my gluten-free readers who were missing their pasta and pizza. On November 1, 2013, the Feast of All Saints, I submitted the manuscript for The Gluten-Free Italian Vegetarian Kitchen, dedicated to Sts. Benedict and Anselm and the Monastic Community of St. Anselms Abbey. With number eighta numeral associated with resurrection and renewalofficially published, I am pleased to proclaim with a bow to Providence that number seven was, blessedly, not my last.

I would like to think that St. Benedict approves of this cookbook. Though not explicitly vegetarian, The Rule is intrinsically peaceful and forbids monks (other than the sick) to eat the meat of four-footed animals and, in some stricter traditions, fowl and fish. Though uniformity in diet is desirable, St. Benedict allows for individual weaknesses by providing his monks with two kinds of cooked food from which to choose, and adding a third dish of fruit and fresh vegetables when available. In further demonstration of The Rules flexibility, particularly where nourishment of the body is concerned, St. Benedict essentially gives the abbot the authority, when deemed necessary, to change the diet. Back in the day of St. Benedict, the menu was hardly gluten-freefar from it. According to The Rule, a generous pound of bread was assigned to each monk to accompany his meals throughout the day. Though celiac disease was first described in the second century, before St. Benedicts time, it wasnt until the late nineteenth century that dietary changes were used as a medical treatment. In any case, had St. Benedict been cognizant of the disease and its treatment, I can easily envision the saint rising before dawn to bake a gluten-free loaf in a designated gluten-free oven to provide an afflicted brother with his dose of daily bread.

The same loving-kindness St. Benedict displays toward his fellow monks is extended to those outside the monastery in the form of hospitality, a pillar of