The Rev. Leo Patalinghug needed help with his cooking demonstration. So he asked for volunteers from the audience gathered Saturday evening at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Tontitown. He called for a couple who had been married less than a year: Rebecca and Stanley Pianalto will celebrate their first anniversary next month. He called for the couple that had been married the longest: Norma and Ernest Deines have marked 61 anniversaries.
Patalinghug handed each a fork and a napkin. "Now, you're going to earn your keep," the priest promised.
"Turn to each other and hold hands -- yes, even with the forks. Look in each others' eyes. Guys repeat after me ..."
Father Leo Patalinghug
Books
Spicing up Married Life: Satisfying Couples’ Hunger for True Love
Publisher: Leo McWatkins Films (2012)
Epic Food Fight: A Bite-Sized History of Salvation
Publisher: Servant Books (2013)
Grace Before Meals: Recipes and Inspirations for Family Meals and Family Life
Publisher: Image (2010)
More Leo
I think a five-second prayer is not truly grace — you know the one I mean. It’s not an action of the Holy Spirit. It should be inspired by God.
Grace is an action in the whole process of making the meal. It takes grace to serve them. If served gracefully, a meal can be a wonderful experience. If it’s served without grace, it can be a horrible experience.
Marriage requires you to be radically in love with God’s plan.
When cutting root vegetables, Patalinghug cut while looking at and talking to the audience — not his hands.
If keep root in place, nothing falls apart.
Marriage should be rooted in God. If there’s only human love in the marriage, it’s gonna suck.
Patalinghug said the knife with which he cut represented Jesus coming and ripping apart what many called the Word of God.
It’s like a scalpel to cut away evil.
It’s a two-edged sword. In the hands of a master, he will not cut himself. If it’s in the hands of an amateur, things can go badly.
Don’t throw away onion peels and skins. Add carrots, wash it all, put them in a cheese cloth and into broth for an aromatic experience.
Nothing goes to waste in God’s plan. Not even the worst day of marriage.
Patalinghug’s dish sizzled over the heat.
That’s my favorite sound other than, “Mass is over. You may go in peace.”
Flipping onions:
It takes practice, and becomes second nature.
Ingredients after they are mixed:
It kind of looks like Christmas gone bad. But it’s OK if it’s not pretty.
Father Leo Patalinghug’s “Fusion Fajitas” beat Bobby Flay’s “Red Curry-Marinated Skirt Steak Fajitas” in the Sept. 9, 2009, episode of “Throwdown! With Bobby Flay” on the Food Network.
I beat him because I just outcooked him … and I added holy water to my marinade.
A groom might think his most important responsibility is to be a husband. A bride might think the most important resposibility to serve her husband.
But your important job is to get your spouse to heaven.
Will there be suffering? Yes.
You will carry a cross, and on it, is the name of your spouse
Jesus loves the crosses, he was willing to suffer for them.
We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic.
— Numbers 11:5
He spoke the words of the traditional wedding vow: I ... promise to take you ..."
Patalinghug urged members of the audience to turn to their spouses and repeat the vows, too.
"What's joined can't be undone," he said, after the couples sealed the vows with a kiss. And those onstage were privileged to be the first to sample the dish.
The audience had watched the priest as he diced and chopped and sauteed his way to a pan of pasta and sauce. He showed the dish via a projection system. Having been cooked together, the ingredients for the dish couldn't be separated -- and neither could the couples.
"They don't look inseparable at all," Patalinghug said. "They must have all the ingredients for the dish."
POWER OF FOOD
Patalinghug -- who is known and loved as "Father Leo" -- spent several days last weekend with members of the parish, speaking during Mass and other special services. In Little Rock, he spoke about spirituality to the priests of the Diocese of Little Rock, which includes the local Catholic churches.
But he came to Tontitown -- the home of the Grape Festival, which intrigues him -- to cook. Some local Catholics seemed star-struck, asking the priest to pose with them for "selfies" or to autograph aprons. He did so with enthusiasm.
Father Leo explained he is a "secular institute priest," and he serves through the entertainment and food industries.
"So many people never come to church," he said. "We want to present it in a digestible way."
Patalinghug said he learned to cook from his Filipino mother, yet he really learned about food and faith -- the theology of food -- while living and attending seminary in Italy.
"I really got a deeper understanding that the whole power of food is God," he said.
Through his Grace Before Meals mission, he seeks to help strengthen families and relationships through the family meal.
"Grace Before Meals is a movement to bring families back to the dinner table -- away from work, school, TV, games and the many other things we get caught up in -- to share a delicious meal together, communicate and love one another and be nourished -- body, mind and soul," Patalinghug's Grace Before Meals website reads.
Among his other missions, Patalinghug writes a blog, "Food for the Soul," for his website and hosts a cooking show, "Savoring Our Faith," on the Eternal World Television Network. His appearances and writings center on one fundamental concept: the simple act of creating and sharing a meal can strengthen all kinds of relationships. His books and shows offer recipes, talking points and other tips to strengthen those family meals.
Patalinghug's local demonstration Oct. 17, titled Spicing Up Your Married Life, came from the pages of his book of the same name. He includes many food references found in Scripture and intersperses his tips about marriage with tips about cooking.
"If you really are a good church, you're going to feed people," he said. "In marriage, it's about feeding the other ...
"Chopping onions!" he suddenly yelled as he turned to the task.
SPICING IT UP
"Food brings couples together," the cooking priest continued. "It was God's plan. It's the theology of food, the theology of the body of God: God made food, and he made humans. The first couple served each other. God told Adam and Eve to feed each other everything ... but the apple.
"And what does that Eve do? She eats it," Patalinghug said with affected indignation.
"God is the master chef foodie of all, but so is the devil," he continued. "The devil is the master of plating. The devil plates bad things to make it look good. He took the forbidden fruit and dunked it in chocolate for Eve.
"But we all know what Adam likes to eat, don't we? The devil wrapped it in bacon!
"If you don't feed (your spouses), the devil will," Patalinghug warned.
"There are lot of dumb things people think marriage is," Patalinghug continued. "It's not the union of two people. It's the union of three. Some people try to make a wedding into a coronation, but if you kick God out of your marriage, you kick love out of your marriage -- that's why people get married in sacred places."
If one would literally put three rings together, it looks like chain -- perhaps a symbol of slavery, he said.
"You're not a slave, but servants to each other," Patalinghug insisted. "You might be suffocated by your spouse, but it's because you choose to be. You are all-consumed about each other.
"Lock that chain, and throw away the key. God intended marriage to be permanent and ever-lasting. That's what God wants. That's what the couple wants. It's not a gym membership that you can get out of in a month. Don't get married just to get out of it. Marriage is a life of sacrifice.
"I have confidence you can put on that third ring of marriage," he said.
When couples take their vows, each throws away what they had been and two become one. Patalinghug demonstrated with two imaginary glasses -- each half filled with imaginary water. He poured the contents of one into the other.
"That's all-consuming love," he said. "You empty yourselves into the other."
Turning back to his cooking, Patalinghug emptied a pint bottle of vodka into the mix to "deglaze the pan." Flames rose from the pan, and he stirred it up a little. "Cool picture for Facebook," he said with a goofy grin on his face.
"When you cook with strong spirits, you get fire," Patalinghug promised. "But you can turn down the heat of love, cover it, if you're scared," he said as he distinguished the flames.
Important to Patalinghug's ministry is letting church members know that God really does care about their marriages.
"That's why he sent his Son to do his first miracle at a wedding," the priest said. Jesus turned water into wine at Cana (John 2).
"This wasn't the water you drink," he continued. "This was water for cleansing, for washing dishes or washing feet. He turned something really gross into something amazing.
"And he made a lot, because when God gives, he gives the best and the most. God ain't cheap."
Next, Patalinghug poured heavy cream into his mixture. "Don't judge," he said. "Let's take up what God made from the cow. It's so delightful, and marriage is all about celebration."
"In marriage, on some days there will be leftovers; some days will be sweet; some days will be salty; some days will be bitter; some days will be sour -- but they all help us appreciate other flavors in life."
Develop your taste and palette, he urged, and show the full spectrum of what it can be.
"Was it love at first sight?" Patalinghug asked the couples. "If it was, good for you. If it wasn't, I understand.
"Ladies, the love began the first time you saw God in that person, and it began with him the first time he was able to see God in you."
NAN Religion on 10/24/2015