The Arizona Republic
Nov. 26, 2005 12:00 AM
Larry Fitzgerald locks on to a tomato he's dicing with the same intensity he shows when running precision routes as the Arizona Cardinals' leading receiver.
He dices silently, with no wasted motion. There's no music or television in the background to distract him.
It's his weekly Wednesday cooking lesson, and this 22-year-old former college All-American takes learning to whisk as seriously as sidestepping a 300-pound lineman.
But why does a bachelor who has a six-year, $60 million contract - more than enough to afford a personal chef - want to learn to cook?
"I want to be able to answer my kids one day when they ask me what's for dinner. I know that in many ways this life in football is unreal, and that when I return to the life I left behind, in that world, I will need to get dinner on the table," he says.
The Heisman Trophy runner-up also knows that what he eats at the dinner table makes a difference in how well he plays on the football field. So in September, the self-proclaimed homebody with a weakness for Popeyes spicy chicken, asked a team nutritionist to link him up with a cooking instructor.
Fitzgerald was ready to add "cook" to his illustrious sports résumé.
Enter Linda Hopkins, owner of Les Petites Gourmettes Children's Cooking School in Scottsdale. Fitzgerald is her first private student and so far so good. "He's very serious, very good and a quick study."
For years, football coaches have said the same about the 6-foot-3, 223-pound player.
At 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, Hopkins totes bags of groceries, recipes and a lesson plan to Fitzgerald's sprawling kitchen with its granite countertops, food art and top-of-the-line appliances. Like Fitzgerald, she's all business.
The first task: chopping onions.
"The most important thing to remember is to always leave the root end intact. The root is what holds all the layers of the onion together. And be careful with the knife," she says.
Fitzgerald needs all 10 fingers healthy. He catches footballs for a living.
From Hopkins, he learns the difference between measuring liquid and dry ingredients, the meaning of mise en place, the French term referring to having all the ingredients necessary for a dish.
She's taught him to boil pasta, sauté salmon, grill chicken, peel asparagus and make caramel sauce from scratch.
For Fitzgerald, who's spent more time in the end zone than standing over a hot stove, the weekly lessons are teaching him what both his parents did quite well: prepare a home-cooked meal from scratch.
"Both my parents worked, and so both cooked. I can remember coming home from football practice hungry and being so happy to walk into the kitchen and smell dinner," he says.
Fitzgerald grew up in Minnesota, where his father, Larry Sr., is the sports editor of the Minnesota Spokesman Recorder and former co-host of the Dennis Green Show when Cardinals coach Green was the Vikings' coach.
Fitzgerald's mother, Carol, who died the year before he was drafted by the Cardinals after a seven-year bout with cancer, worked as an AIDS activist for the Minnesota Department of Health.
Both parents, he says, taught him the importance of family dinner, even though they were too busy to teach him to cook.
Today, that's Hopkins job.
Fitzgerald runs the 40 in the 4.5 seconds range, but in the kitchen, he's at half the speed of a food TV chef.
"He's somewhat of a perfectionist. He wants everything to be done just so," Hopkins says.
There's little the apron-clad Fitzgerald does not want to learn to cook. There's also little he refuses to eat. By most standards, his list of banned foods is short - brussels sprouts, fennel seed and sausage.
When the lessons are over, and the food is cooked, Hopkins and Fitzgerald sit down for dinner. Fitzgerald says grace. After a few bites, Hopkins says job well done.
Fitzgerald has yet to botch a dish, but Hopkins warns him of the inevitable. "I tell him that even accomplished cooks like myself make mistakes. I put him at ease by telling him I always burn garlic bread."
Reach the reporter at karen
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or (602) 444-4779.
He dices silently, with no wasted motion. There's no music or television in the background to distract him.
It's his weekly Wednesday cooking lesson, and this 22-year-old former college All-American takes learning to whisk as seriously as sidestepping a 300-pound lineman.
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But why does a bachelor who has a six-year, $60 million contract - more than enough to afford a personal chef - want to learn to cook?
"I want to be able to answer my kids one day when they ask me what's for dinner. I know that in many ways this life in football is unreal, and that when I return to the life I left behind, in that world, I will need to get dinner on the table," he says.
The Heisman Trophy runner-up also knows that what he eats at the dinner table makes a difference in how well he plays on the football field. So in September, the self-proclaimed homebody with a weakness for Popeyes spicy chicken, asked a team nutritionist to link him up with a cooking instructor.
Fitzgerald was ready to add "cook" to his illustrious sports résumé.
Enter Linda Hopkins, owner of Les Petites Gourmettes Children's Cooking School in Scottsdale. Fitzgerald is her first private student and so far so good. "He's very serious, very good and a quick study."
For years, football coaches have said the same about the 6-foot-3, 223-pound player.
At 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, Hopkins totes bags of groceries, recipes and a lesson plan to Fitzgerald's sprawling kitchen with its granite countertops, food art and top-of-the-line appliances. Like Fitzgerald, she's all business.
The first task: chopping onions.
"The most important thing to remember is to always leave the root end intact. The root is what holds all the layers of the onion together. And be careful with the knife," she says.
Fitzgerald needs all 10 fingers healthy. He catches footballs for a living.
From Hopkins, he learns the difference between measuring liquid and dry ingredients, the meaning of mise en place, the French term referring to having all the ingredients necessary for a dish.
She's taught him to boil pasta, sauté salmon, grill chicken, peel asparagus and make caramel sauce from scratch.
For Fitzgerald, who's spent more time in the end zone than standing over a hot stove, the weekly lessons are teaching him what both his parents did quite well: prepare a home-cooked meal from scratch.
"Both my parents worked, and so both cooked. I can remember coming home from football practice hungry and being so happy to walk into the kitchen and smell dinner," he says.
Fitzgerald grew up in Minnesota, where his father, Larry Sr., is the sports editor of the Minnesota Spokesman Recorder and former co-host of the Dennis Green Show when Cardinals coach Green was the Vikings' coach.
Fitzgerald's mother, Carol, who died the year before he was drafted by the Cardinals after a seven-year bout with cancer, worked as an AIDS activist for the Minnesota Department of Health.
Both parents, he says, taught him the importance of family dinner, even though they were too busy to teach him to cook.
Today, that's Hopkins job.
Fitzgerald runs the 40 in the 4.5 seconds range, but in the kitchen, he's at half the speed of a food TV chef.
"He's somewhat of a perfectionist. He wants everything to be done just so," Hopkins says.
There's little the apron-clad Fitzgerald does not want to learn to cook. There's also little he refuses to eat. By most standards, his list of banned foods is short - brussels sprouts, fennel seed and sausage.
When the lessons are over, and the food is cooked, Hopkins and Fitzgerald sit down for dinner. Fitzgerald says grace. After a few bites, Hopkins says job well done.
Fitzgerald has yet to botch a dish, but Hopkins warns him of the inevitable. "I tell him that even accomplished cooks like myself make mistakes. I put him at ease by telling him I always burn garlic bread."
Reach the reporter at karen
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or (602) 444-4779.
