Lovely pictures and short essays; you get a genuine feel for the material at hand, and the food photography is gorgeous.
That said, after several of the articles, the entire thing reads as very precious: this is hipster-chic photography and food at its very best. If you are interested in multiple paragraphs detailing the beauty of a cup of coffee and how "the process" of growing the beans and bringing it to the coffee-drinker's home is more important than the flavor, appeal, or company enjoyed while drinking the coffee, this is the book for you. It seems like the contributors are more concerned with the perfect description of each element and the perfect word for each moment, which leads to a book full of gorgeous (posed, and pretentious in a vintage-chic-everything kind of way) photos and self-consciously posed language and descriptions (filled with nostalgia for long-gone summers written by people who are, at most, in their 30s. Build your nostalgia before living it!).
I applaud the effort. The push to small gatherings, to genuine enjoyment of life, food, and time off, the emphasis on including small moments of beauty and joy throughout the day and not putting your life on hold until weekends... Yes. But the format, writing, and photography of this just make me cringe a bit and say oh, how very precious.
Honestly, I keep thinking I'll like this the next time I pick it up, but, every time I do, I just keep cringing a the utterly transparent and poised self-consciousness of it all and retreating to my kitchen, my tea, and my books.
