Faith, food collide in Divine Mercy’s cooking show

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

While brainstorming ways to help her fellow parishioners at Divine Mercy Church in Kenner prepare for Easter, Becky Delatte thought of a simple recipe she had made with her mother ever since she could remember.

On Good Friday, the duo would sprinkle cinnamon sugar onto a regular-size marshmallow, wrap it up into a ball of canned biscuit dough and refrigerate the concoction for three days.

After baking the dough ball on Easter morning, the surprise would come as soon as they bit into their breakfast treat: The cinnamon-sugar laced marshmallow, representing Jesus’ spice-anointed body, had melted and disappeared inside its “tomb” of dough, creating a hollow space reminiscent of the empty burial chamber found after Christ’s resurrection.

“It’s a great visual for young kids to see that the tomb is empty,” said Delatte, who asked Divine Mercy’s pastor, Father Robert Cooper, if he would be willing to demonstrate the “Resurrection Roll” recipe on a Facebook Live video on Holy Thursday, as the parish entered into this year’s Triduum.

To Delatte’s shock and delight, the Resurrection Roll segment, featuring Delatte’s 4-year-old daughter Lucy as Father Cooper’s assistant chef, received more than 2,000 views.

“When we went to the Stations of the Cross service (on Good Friday), we had tons of people come up to Lucy going, ‘Was that you on TV?’ and ‘Are you and Father going to do another Facebook Live?’” said Delatte, Divine Mercy’s director of communications and media.


A faith rich in symbols
 
Since then, “Cooking with Father Cooper,” a Facebook Live series produced and filmed by Delatte in her Kenner kitchen, has become a parish sensation that takes the Gospel to viewers’ homes through one of Louisiana’s favorite pastimes: food.

A few days before an important feast day or celebration related to a Catholic tradition, Father Cooper and Lucy go live to whip up delicious treats themed to coincide with those feasts.

For example, when Delatte learned that a pretzel’s three open spaces were designed by a monk to represent the three persons of the Holy Trinity, she organized a show in which the chefs made “Chocolate-Dipped Peanut Butter Pretzels” – to prepare parishioners for the May 30 Feast of the Holy Trinity.

“The church has so many cool symbols that are attached to it,” said Delatte, who with her husband Scott are also parents to another daughter, 1-year-old Margaret. “That’s one of my favorite things about the Catholic Church.”

Delatte believes that simple recipes, bursting with faith-based symbolism, can evangelize, teach and reinforce catechesis every bit as much as a panel of stained glass, a statue of a saint or a textbook.

“These recipes are a fun, easy thing families can do together because they are not complicated,” said Delatte of the segments, which run 15 to 25 minutes in length and are available to watch after each live episode.

Since the inaugural “Resurrection Roll” episode, the “Cooking with Father Cooper” cast and crew have followed up with installments including:
 
• “Divine Mercy Brownies”: Made in honor of the parish’s namesake and Divine Mercy Sunday. The chefs decorated heart-shaped brownies with “rays” of whipped cream, blueberries and strawberries, colors mimicking those in the famous Divine Mercy painting.

• “Edible Rosary”: A family-friendly recipe that aired in early May – in tribute to the Blessed Mother – for which Father Cooper and Lucy used muffins and color-coded M&Ms to create the shape of a rosary.

• “Ascension Graham Crackers”: Brown graham crackers, symbolizing the earth on which Jesus walked, were topped with blue frosting, representing the heavens. Mini marshmallows were added to suggest celestial clouds, while a licorice rainbow was added to “draw us back to Noah and the idea of the rainbow as a symbol of God’s promises,” explained Delatte.

“The rainbow also helps us to connect the dots; right before Jesus ascended, he gave us a promise that he would send us an advocate (the Holy Spirit), which also points us toward Pentecost.”

• “Pentecost Cake”: Father Cooper and Lucy inserted a dozen white candles (symbolizing the 12 apostles in the upper room) and one blue candle (representing Mary), into a cake. After using a hammer to break up a hardened sheet of melted Jolly Rancher candies, the two chefs placed the jagged candy shards into the cake, suggesting the glow of stained glass when the candles were lit. “It looked like a gigantic bonfire in the middle of the cake,” Delatte said.

‘Waffle Monstrance’ teaches

The recipe presented June 3 on Facebook Live revealed what a well-oiled machine the series had become just two months into its run.

After donning his chef’s apron and helping Lucy, a St. Elizabeth Ann Seton kindergartner, with hers, Father Cooper introduced viewers to “Monstrance Waffles” in anticipation of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

“A monstrance, for those of you who may not know, is one of those articles that we use to hold the Blessed Sacrament – to hold the Eucharist – so that we can bring the Eucharist in procession and adore the Lord in the Eucharist,” said Father Cooper, who went on to show how edible monstrances can be made from scratch or with store-bought waffles.

“Remember, this is very hot, Lucy. We want to make sure we’re very careful,” said the priest, dousing the electric waffle-maker with non-stick spray.

As the two waited for the waffle batter to set, Father Cooper updated his parishioners on Divine Mercy’s ongoing appeal for donations of activity books, toys and gift cards to distribute to the families of sick and terminally ill children at Angels’ Place.



Lucy demonstrated how to create the “stem” of the monstrance waffle – by making a line of sugar wafers – and added “rays” of butterscotch chips and sprinkles to symbolize the glory of God shining forth through the Eucharist.

“You can use butterscotch chips, you can use chocolate chips, you can use whatever you like,” said Father Cooper, before adding one final but important touch: a circle of whip cream at the center of the waffle to represent the consecrated host – the Blessed Sacrament.

“This is a wonderful way to celebrate and remember the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist,” Father Cooper said. “It reminds us, boys and girls, that we’re called to be like a living monstrance. We receive Jesus and then we’re (also) called to bring him into the world every day.”

Uses tangibles to preach

Although he doesn’t claim to be a cook himself, Father Cooper was raised in New Orleans in a Sicilian-American family of talented cooks and bakers.

“Pretty much everything is centered on the dinner table,” he said of his family. “It was the ‘11th Commandment’ – you had to be there on Sunday for dinner, and if you missed, it was a grave sin.”

The priest said the cooking segments, intentionally designed to encourage families to make the recipes with their children and grandchildren, are “a wonderful way to bring food and our religious faith together.”

Using visuals is a catechetical technique that Father Cooper has also incorporated into his homilies over his 14 years as a priest, especially during school Masses. For example, for his first homily of the school year, he unpacks a backpack containing basic school supplies such as paper, folders, scissors and crayons. The final item unpacked by the priest, just as his young congregants think the bag has everything they need for school, is an image of Jesus.

“While all of those other (school supplies) are important, the most important thing is that we always take Jesus with us,” Father Cooper explained. “I want to be able to reach the children at their level, and because our kids are so visual, we need something to be able to capture their attention.

“The best part about (using props) is that I originally thought I was speaking only to the children. But I have found over the years that it also has been beneficial – and maybe even more beneficial at times – for the adults who are in the congregation.”

As a live production, the cooking show has many moments of levity, such as the time the two presenters used an electric mixer to make buttercream frosting from scratch.


“What does every child want to do whenever they get homemade frosting? They want to lick the spoon,” Delatte said. “Lucy grabs the whisk and sticks the whole thing in her mouth! (The frosting) was delicious, but we quickly learned to use canned frosting from then on!”

The next “Cooking with Father Cooper” segments on Facebook Live will be a summer series called “Good News Goodies,” set to air at 3 p.m. on the following dates: July 19 (“Snake Cookies”); July 20 (“Nativity Cupcakes)”; and July 21 (“Holy Spirit Campfire Treats”). Past videos can be viewed at www.divinemercyparish.org/cooking-with-fr-cooper and on Divine Mercy’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and Instagram account.

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