By Reagan Scott
for the Register
The parish hall at St. Mary in Elmwood was the setting for a unique event Feb. 22, a “Dinner with the Saints” hosted by parishioner Chef Lawrence de Villiers.
The evening offered attendees the opportunity to enjoy fellowship and a French meal while learning about three of the country’s most notable saints.
Originally hailing from France, de Villiers is the executive chef and owner of L’s Kitchen in Lincoln. When he envisioned the event, his goals were to help the parish become more of a family – and to raise money for the church.
“The best way to get to know each other is through food,” he said. “That’s what I do for a living, and I believe that wholeheartedly… so I thought that we could have the whole parish gather, or as many as possible, and that way we would get to know each other and get to spend time with each other,” de Villiers said.
Mollie Sundermeier, the parish engagement coordinator for St. Patrick Parish in Manley and its mission, St. Mary Parish in Elmwood, as well as St. Mary Parish in Ashland, and its mission St. Joseph in Greenwood, said when de Villiers stepped forward with his idea, it fell completely in line with where the parish wanted to focus its attention.
Sundermeier said, “One thing we’ve been focusing on with our parish family at St. Mary is for our parishioners to get to know each other, because that’s pretty foundational to a vibrant parish life.”
Father Jason Doher, the pastor of St. Mary and St. Patrick parishes, had agreed that the event would be really good for parishioners.
“I think it was a brilliant idea to take the one thing that all of us love, food, and make the connection with God,” Father Doher said. “Our Lord spends a lot of his ministry in dinner, ministering to people through food, and gives of himself through food, so it just made sense.”
Father Doher said he had no idea what to expect for attendance, as this event was a first for the parish, but he said that since his arrival two and a half years ago, he’s noticed that the St. Mary parishioners have always responded well to events, and the dinner was no exception.
Open to adults from the parish, the dinner quickly exceeded its capacity by two, for a total of 42 attendees. A $50 donation was requested for each guest, with all proceeds going back to St. Mary.
De Villiers said that when his restaurant hosts tasting events for other groups or churches, the organizations will cover the cost of the food and labor, and can then retain the profits from the event.
For his home parish, de Villiers donated the food, and asked his staff if they would be willing to volunteer their time. Everyone who was available that night said yes. De Villiers described his staff as a family, and said a majority of the employees at L’s Kitchen are Catholic, so the event really resonated with them.
While he now lives a long way from France, for a few hours, de Villiers was able to share a bit of home with those who gathered in the basement of the church.
For the first course, de Villiers served a mushroom cream soup, called a mushroom duxelles, made with a reduction or puree of mushroom, garlic and shallots, then deglazed with white wine and finished with cream.
The second course was cassoulet, which de Villiers described as “a fancy French chili,” and a “top three” favorite food for the French.
The dish is made with bacon, sausage, pork tenderloin, great northern beans, root vegetables like carrots and onions, tomatoes and different spices.
“It’s pure French comfort food that I wanted to introduce to my American family,” de Villiers said. “I thought this was a great introduction to French cuisine for our parish, and also a great way for them to have something relatable, because it’s a heartwarming bean stew made fancy.”
Finally, the meal ended with a dessert of fondant au chocolat or “melting chocolate cake,” which de Villiers said is the French version of a chocolate lava cake, and the first thing that he ever baked for people.
To accompany each course, de Villiers came out to share a story about three of his favorite French saints: St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Louis (King Louis IX) and St. Joan of Arc.
“The idea was not to educate people on saints, but rather make people relate on the fact that the Catholic Church is universal,” de Villiers said. “I may have a different accent, and I may have a different background, but I have the same end goal.”
De Villiers described St. Thérèse as “the most relatable saint.” He said in reading her autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” one can see that she has presented a pragmatic version of the imitation of Christ, where holiness is in the little things.
“This is why I think St. Thérèse is very popular in the world, because we can all relate to what she said,” de Villiers said. “And, more importantly, we can do what she did. Anybody can be a St. Thérèse.”
For his next saint, St. Louis, de Villiers said that he grew up in a world ruled by political power, with a father who was a prominent politician, and one of his role models was St. Louis, the king of France, and the only French monarch to be canonized.
De Villiers said in choosing to talk about St. Thérèse and St. Louis, “It’s another way to look at an example of holiness for everyone, the littlest and the biggest, the least powerful and the most powerful.”
Despite his title, St. Louis demonstrated a deep humility, and was known for being fair and just. During Holy Week, he would wash the feet of lepers and of the poor and was known for his charitable works.
De Villiers said if St. Thérèse is a saint anyone can be, and St. Louis is a role model to look up to, then his final saint, St. Joan of Arc, is a different saint.
“St. Joan of Arc is an anomaly, one of a kind,” de Villiers said. “A 16-year-old maiden who somehow managed to convince one of the most powerful kings of the world to take over his army, let alone as a woman, as a girl, and to fight the British out of France,” de Villiers said.
Looking at it from a historical point of view, he said it’s very hard to explain how it happened, that in a patriarchal society, the men at the time trusted a tiny girl to do what they couldn’t do, to save France.
De Villiers said, “If Great Britain had won and taken over France, France’s Catholic Church would have disappeared, and if the French Catholic Church had disappeared, the Catholic Church altogether would have struggled to survive, so it was imperative that France remained Catholic.”
De Villiers said Jesus doesn’t favor one country over another, but he does favor the Church, and because he favors the Church, he favored France to win.
He said, “That’s how we French Catholics can rationalize and understand why St. Joan heard the voices and had the visions, and had the vision to save France. It’s not that she saved France, she saved the Catholic Church, and then she died in the name of Christ.”
Sundermeier expressed her gratitude to de Villiers for creating the event, and his willingness to offer his gifts of cooking, hospitality and speaking to the parish in such a unique way.
Sundermeier said she hopes attendees were able to meet and converse with people at the parish who they only see in Mass every Sunday, learn something about some of the Church’s amazing saints, and just have an enjoyable evening.
“I think if our church has capacity to serve our people and let them know that they’re loved and valued, there’s value in that,” she said. “It’s creating a strong parish family.”
For attendees, the special night was surely one to remember, and serves as a reminder that everyone has gifts that they can offer in service to their parish communities, which can make a big impact.
Father Doher said, “We’re not always looking for monetary contributions, even though those are really good and necessary and helpful, but other gifts that people can give in time and talent can benefit the parish in ways that money can’t.”
From France to Nebraska: the story of Chef Lawrence
By Reagan Scott
for the Register
Born and raised in an aristocratic family in western France, Lawrence de Villiers or “Chef Lawrence” as he introduces himself, never could have guessed that he would one day find himself the executive chef and owner of a restaurant in the middle of the United States, but God has a way of putting people on paths they could scarcely dream of themselves.
De Villiers said he grew up loving cooking, and received his introduction from the private chefs who would come to cook for his family at home.
“At a very early age, around 6 years old, I became very interested in cooking as an art form, and a social experiment, and a way for me to be very creative,” de Villiers said.
Entirely self-taught, de Villiers would find ways to get himself involved in the kitchen, cooking for his friends in the European boy scouts and during events that he would do with Catholic communities.
In 2005, when he was 21, de Villiers moved to New York City, where he volunteered for a homeless shelter and soup kitchen run by the CFRs, or Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.
“I wanted to spend a year with [the CFRs], and get away from my upbringing, which was very privileged,” de Villiers said.
It was there in the Bronx that de Villiers met his future wife, a woman named Renee who was volunteering with the community. Her hometown? McCool Junction, Nebraska.
The two would later move to Paris for a year where they got engaged, and then they had a choice to make.
“Between Paris, New York and Lincoln, we made an easy choice. We wanted to raise a family, and Lincoln is a great place to raise a family. It’s also one of the best Catholic dioceses in the word, and it had a great reputation,” de Villiers said.
The two moved to Lincoln and married in 2007. They have remained in the area, now living in Eagle where they’re raising their four daughters.
“In my opinion, the true heart of America is in the Midwest,” de Villiers said. “It was harder for me to adapt to New York than it was to adapt to Nebraska. I just loved it right away.”
De Villiers started his career in the restaurant business in 2010 as a chef-for-hire, and as his success grew, went on to open his first restaurant, The Normandy, in downtown Lincoln. He would later move the restaurant to a new location at 17th and Van Dorn, and sold it in 2018.
L’s Kitchen (the “L” stands for Lincoln) opened in February 2022, in the same location after The Normandy moved premises.
DeVilliers described L’s Kitchen as a fusion of French and American, American comfort food with a French twist, and he’s grateful for the support of the community, which has allowed his business to succeed.
The de Villiers family has enjoyed their parish home of St. Mary in Elmwood since their move to Eagle. De Villiers said the rural values of the parish appealed to his wife because of her upbringing in McCool Junction.
Now, giving back to his parish family by hosting his “Dinner with the Saints” and sharing his talent for cooking, is also a way for de Villiers to express his gratitude.
“I arrived in Lincoln 20 years ago with nothing,” he said. “I had no college degree, no friends, no money and I didn’t speak English. So my American dream and my success story, I owe it to my community, and the community is the Catholic community of Lincoln, and now the Catholic community of Elmwood.”
De Villiers’ story is certainly a fascinating one, and he credits it to the universality of the Church.
“It’s [because of it] that a French aristocrat can marry a farm girl from Nebraska, and that what they have in common, and what they had in the first place to build their marriage, their family and their life story together is their Catholic faith.”
