So we went up to Emmittsburg last week to visit with the Rev. Leo Patalinghug at Mount St. Mary's University. For several years now, Father Leo has been pushing Grace Before Meals, the ministry he created to encourage family and friends to eat and talk with each other.
We found focusing on food as a vehicle for gathering people together to be an interesting avocation for a priest, given that the Catholic Mass is built around the Eucharist, the reenactment of the Last Supper at which believers are nourished by the body and blood of Christ.
Patalinghug thought he was being filmed for a Food Network feature on his ministry last June when celebrity chef Bobby Flay challenged him to a throwdown – a cook-off featuring, in this case, fajitas.
The episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay airs Wednesday night. Patalinghug, who wouldn't tell us who won, is hosting a viewing party in the parking lot of Da Mimmo's Italian Restaurant at 217 S. High St. in Little Italy.
We've produced a story for Wednesday's newspaper, but it's online now at baltimoresun.com.