Cooking on the course

Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8-handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up.

Thursday, May 1

NEW ORLEANS -- "Practice with dry bread," the pro told me. "If it goes all over the floor, it doesn't matter."

What was this? The latest swing tip from Brian Mogg, my East Coast swing consultant? A wry correction from Mats Only's resident pro, Rob Stanger?

Nope. Yesterday I hooked up with a range guru who makes those guys drool: best-selling author and world-class chef Paul Prudhomme, the man who invented the "blackening" cooking technique.

Prudhomme's teaching method resembles that of the great Tommy Armour, who used to conduct his golf lessons while seated under an umbrella, a mixed drink in his hand. Prudhomme has refined the approach by adding a portable gas grill, some pots and pans, and a few stainless-steel bowls filled with bell peppers, onions, pasta, butter, chicken morsels and proprietary seasonings. Last year Prudhomme held a clinic on the practice range at English Turn Golf & Country Club, site of the HP Classic of New Orleans. This time he showed his stuff in an air-conditioned hospitality tent near the range. If you walked up to his table, Prudhomme would personally spoon out a spicy sample of one of his famous recipes for you to taste. I walked up to his table several times.

	Darren Carroll

Probably because he thought it was the only way to get rid of me, Prudhomme agreed to give me a couple of cooking pointers. The first involved flipping the ingredients in a sauté pan. Chef Paul demonstrated with a pan full of sizzling onions, launching them a foot or two in the air and then catching them in the pan without losing a drop of juice. "You push" -- he thrust the pan toward me -- "and pull back. When you pull back, that's when it takes off. But if you just pull back, nothing's going to happen. It's push and pull back." He repeated the simple move. The onions levitated and rained back down on the pan.

When it was my turn, I expected Prudhomme to start me out with a pan of dry bread. But no! He had me come around the table and try it with a sautŽ pan filled with chicken, pasta, vegetables and a simmering cream sauce. Natural athlete that I am, I instinctively gripped the handle with a five-finger grip, my right thumb on top in a concavely arched, "short thumb" position. Beyond that, my mind went numb.

"Give it a flip," Prudhomme said.

I remembered "push" and "pull," but the pressure was incredible. If I didn't field the food cleanly, it would land right in Chef Paul's lap, desecrating his snow-white tunic. It was as if Phil Mickelson, trying to teach me the lob shot, had stood 10 feet away and said, "Just hit it over my head."

Give me some credit: I didn't freeze. I pushed the pan forward tentatively, pulled back hard enough to yank a thread off a sweater, and watched with clenched teeth as the pasta and sauce hopped about an inch above the rim of the pan and splatted back down. There was no hang time, but Chef Paul gave me an approving "That's good." There was a smattering of applause from the thousands of spectators lining the tent.

My second effort was feeble -- the sauce never got airborne -- but at least I didn't baste the chef's famous beard with cream sauce. With a laugh resembling a death rattle, I scurried back around the table.

Prudhomme had a few other tips. Sniffing at a pan of his ginger-snap gravy, he said, "If your ginger snaps don't have enough ginger in them, add some crushed ginger." If I wanted to be really adventurous, he added, I could mix in more meat, chill the gravy and serve it cold. "Makes a great sandwich."

The great man's recipe for blackened redfish will be harder to follow. Step 1, basically, is to be on the riverbank when the boat docks. "You try to freeze river fish, they're awful. But fresh?" He rolled his eyes in ecstasy. "You don't know what a Louisiana redfish is, right out of the water. Incredible!" When I asked Prudhomme if any of the tour players had come in to sample his dishes, he shrugged and laughed. "To you guys they may be players. To me they're just somebody to feed!"

Anyway, I wrote it all down in my notebook. When I get back to Kansas City, I'm going to make the teriyaki cream sauce and serve it over white rice. If that goes well, I'm going to get out my wife's shiniest sauté pan and practice my flipping -- first with dry bread crusts and then, if that goes well, with bubbling-hot cooking oil.

I just wish I had asked Chef Paul for his private phone number. You know, in case I fall into some bad cooking habits.

Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity advice, share your experiences, or suggest a driving range, click here.

 

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