Generous cook wins a brand-new kitchen
- Original The Morning Call article: Generous cook wins a brand-new kitchen
Months ago, Morris Black & Sons decided the best way it could celebrate its 100th anniversary in business would be to make over the kitchen of the most deserving person it could find.
John Morrell of Allentown, maker of countless shepherd's pies for church functions and cookies for the Miller-Keystone Blood Center, learned Monday he garnered the most votes in Morris Black's Kitchen of a Lifetime contest, and will receive a $60,000 kitchen.
Designers Oscar Acevedo, Lydia Bogle and Dan Lenner will draw up three designs to fit Morrell's needs. Starting June 1, the public will choose which design Morrell will get by again voting online at http://www.morrisblack.com , and this time at http://www.themorningcall.com , as well.
Over the summer, Morris Black will dig in and complete the work, which Morrell hopes includes a double oven, a six-burner stove and a parking spot for the Kitchen Aid mixer he carries up from the basement every time he needs to use it.
Morrell, 76, learned to cook when he was 15 and working at the former Walp's restaurant in Allentown. He spent many years as a cook for Bethlehem Steel. Nominated by the Rev. Elizabeth Langensiepen, pastor of St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church , Allentown, he That he no longer cooks for Steel executives or visitors from around the world is fine with him. He spends his time preparing suppers, holiday dinners, funeral meals and banquets at St. Peter's and at St. John's Evangelical Congregational Church, just around the corner from his Allentown home.
But he hasn't just cooked his way through life. Thirteen years ago he fought and won a battle with mouth cancer that took half his mouth and has left him a little tired.
Though the new kitchen will be a treat, he won't do anything differently. He will only do more of it, he says.
And if he could have what he really wants, he would share the $60,000 with the other two finalists, so they could each have a $20,000 kitchen, since surely, he says, that would be enough for all of them.
Though disappointed, the other two finalists, Michelle Boyd of Center Valley and the Rev. Ken Reigard of Lehigh Township, did not leave empty-handed.
Nominated by her mother, Mary Delong of Center Valley, Boyd, 42, also fought a winning battle with cancer. The mother of three sons and a daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 37.
Through surgeries and treatments, she kept her sense of humor and generosity toward her chemo and radiation cohorts, at times dressing up as Tina Turner or Little Orphan Annie to boost their morale and celebrate their victories. Morris Black will update the eating area in her kitchen.
Reigard left a life of financial security and a dream home in Moore Township several years ago to join the ministry.
He turned his skills toward his first church, one in center city Allentown, where, he says, ''We fixed it up, remodeled, repainted, rewired it and got it up to code in about 31/2 years,'' all the while ministering to the faithful who faced myriad life challenges.
Along the way, he sold the dream home for a fixer-upper that never quite got around to seeing a modern kitchen, he says.
Today, he is the pastor of the Gospel Chapel in Northampton, and was nominated by his sister, Debbie Berry in Alabama. He will receive a dishwasher.
mariella.savidge@mcall.com 610-778-2253
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