Food

By Kelsey C. Blackwell
Medill Reports - Chicago

By Evan Swan
Medill News Service

It ain't nothin' but a chicken wing for Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti, the 22-year-old Mohawk-wearing Morgan Park Academy grad who ate his way to victory on the Major League Eating Tour in the Chicken Wing Showdown in Las Vegas late Tuesday morning.

Along with the prize, he claimed the $25,000 purse after defeating international and hot dog-eating legend, Takeru Kobayashi, and this year's Nathan's Hot Dog Eating champion, Joey Chestnut.

Patrick Bertoletti, a 2003 graduate from Morgan Park Academy finished in third place at the 92nd Annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest on July 4 in Brooklyn, NY. Bertoletti ate 49 hot dogs and buns (HDBs) in twelve minutes.

Bertoletti only trailed the champion Joey Chestnut (66 HDB) and six-time champion Takero Kobayashi (63 HDB). Both Chestnut and Kobayashi set records with their numbers.

Bertoletti is one of the few eaters who have beaten Chestnut, as he defeated him in a jalepeno eating contest earlier this year at the St. Patrick's Day Chowdown in Savannah, GA.

She admitted that the last time the place was so crowded was 21 years ago when Snackville Junction reopened at 9144 S. Kedzie Ave. in Evergreen Park - after 39 years in Morgan Park.

Perch, perch and more perch

The wildly popular St. Christina fish fry, which serves hundreds of Mount Greenwood families each week during Lent, is in its 13th year. On Friday - the last before Holy Week - the fish fry completed another Lenten season. Dozens of volunteers, from cooks to servers, have spent the last six Fridays serving up perch, spaghetti and grilled cheese in an annual Catholic Lenten tradition.

To see more photos of the St. Christina fish fry, click here.