Fr. Andrew grew up in Arcadia, CA and is the son of two Filipino immigrants. He attended Tisch School of the Arts in New York University majoring in cinema studies with dreams of working in the film industry. After graduation, he worked in a talent agency in Los Angeles. Soon he discovered that the entertainment industry wasn’t for him. It wasn’t until he met a Capuchin Franciscan friar through a college friend that he thought of becoming a Capuchin friar. He decided to leave Los Angeles and embrace the life of a Capuchin friar. In his first year, he was meditating in the chapel and a thought came into his mind; “Why don’t you cook something?”, so he started baking. That’s how baking came into his life.

For the past 13 years, Fr. Andrew has been baking for special occasions, family, friends, charities, and of course the friars. In January 2020, he competed and won Season 5 of The Great American Baking Show. Fr. Andrew is now the superior of his friary in Washington, DC, and the director of post-novitiate formation in which he trains student friars as they discern this way of life. He still bakes in between all his meetings.

Mina Szpiro is a food columnist in Judisk Krönika, the Swedish National Jewish Chronicle. She teaches Jewish cooking classes and gives lectures on Jewish food culture. Mina will share her recipe for potato latkes, with a Swedish twist, for the Jewish holiday Chanukka.