Cooks With Collars: Priests Take to Their Kitchens in a Friendly Competition That Supports Parishes and Catholic Charities

We all know that man does not live by bread alone.

So what’s actually cooking in rectories and parish kitchens around the Diocese?

Here’s your chance to get behind the scenes and see the culinary creativity that happens when our priests hang up their vestments and slip on their aprons to make dinner.

At the same time, you can have some fun, see a completely different side of our priests, and support parishes and the food ministries of Catholic Charities.

Welcome to “Cooks With Collars.”

On the website, www.CooksWithCollars.com, which goes live January 15, there are at least 25 videos featuring diocesan priests and some of the best specialty food items from around the Diocese. You’ll find halupkies, pierogies, kiffles, clam chowder, spaghetti sauce and even Peking duck.

You’ll also find some lighthearted moments and creative approaches as priests, seminarians, sisters and parishioners – in some cases assisted by their four-legged friends – cook their favorite meals.

Here are previews of just a few of the videos:

• Monsignor Thomas Orsulak of Reading adds enough butter to his stovetop pierogies to make him wonder if any cardiologists are watching.
• Father John Pendzick of Whitehall has his first batch of ginger cookies cooling on the table, but eighth-grade cookie thieves make them slowly disappear as he works on his second batch.
• Father Richard James of Bally walks across the street to visit the cows that contributed to his special milkshake.
• Father Keith Laskowski of Easton cooks his curried chicken with cranberry couscous in a most unusual spot – over a camp stove atop Bake Oven Knob on the Appalachian Trail.
• Father Allen Hoffa of Summit Hill interviews his parish’s “Halupki Queen.”

It’s a friendly competition among priests and parishes, and you can vote for your favorites by using the website to make a financial contribution to the parishes with the best videos. All money from voting goes directly to the parishes, and dollars from sponsors of Cooks With Collars go to the food ministries of Catholic Charities.