BEREA, Ohio — Pigskin, pancake, turnover—these are terms you might hear on a football field or, perhaps, in a kitchen, and Wednesday at Baldwin Wallace University, rookies you'd normally find running drills on the former were instead working hard on the latter.
The third annual Rooks to Cooks event was held inside BW's Strosacker Hall Student Union on Wednesday afternoon. The Browns' newest members walked into a set up of cooking stations for each player, set with cutting boards, knives, a tabletop burner and aprons that greeted them upon their arrival.
It should come as no surprise that NFL players are competitive in nature, and Baldwin Wallace instructors certainly took that to heart in the Rooks to Cooks course. Starting off with a parfait challenge, players had five minutes to build the best parfait dish they could, both in ingredients and appearance. Yogurt, fresh fruit and granola sat on tables, loaded by the players into their choice of dish. Some used skewers to showcase colorful berries; others used drizzles of syrup to garnish their plates.
Rookie wide receiver Jamari Thrash made sure to take a picture of his parfait, a dish he was proud of, at the end of the five-minute race. Offensive lineman Zak Zinter put together a smattering of treats to accompany his parfait, a perfect portion for the quarterback protector.
"I feel great about it honestly, got a little three-course meal for brunch," Zinter said. "I've cooked before. Not a ton, but I do cook. I can make something good to eat."
Most of the players had cooked a little in their time, but not many were ready to call themselves chefs. That's where those with the actual title came in to support.
Culinary instructors from the university were on hand to make their way around the room and help teach players some fundamentals in the kitchen, like how to hold a knife, how to get an even cook in a skillet and how to best cut certain produce.
Nathaniel "Bookie" Watson learned his way around a pepper—a lesson he won't soon forget.
"Green pepper, yellow pepper, any color pepper, I can cut it now. I [didn't] know how to cut peppers at all, I used to always go get the bag of peppers out of Walmart and just throw them in there and they'd already be cooked. But now I can do it myself—fresh peppers," Watson said.
Players chopped produce and learned new techniques to cook an omelet, learning how much protein the eggs had and how much more they'd need to hit their nutritional goals, all while getting to pick out the extra ingredients to make the omelets unique to them.
After their plating was complete, culinary instructors made their way around the tables to take note of the plating, ingredients, and how well the player utilized the skills taught in the course. Winners for best parfait, best overall chef and "Go Getter of the Day" were awarded with trophies and BW swag—and, of course, bragging rights.
"Just won the best cook for the day. It's what I do," said Myles Harden. "When I go home now I can cook breakfast for everybody. I don't cook for everybody because everybody's not going to like it how I like it, but now I'm confident to go cook for them."
While Harden won best overall chef, Zinter won best parfait and defensive tackle Chris Williams won the go-getter award.
In its third year, the Rooks to Cooks event aims to do just that—give players the confidence to cook meals for themselves and for others while also being able to self-monitor their nutritional habits as they prepare for their careers in the NFL.
"Our main priorities with the rookies is to make sure that they are able to prepare things on their own, stay healthy, stay safe while they're doing it. Give them some of that basic information so they can be successful in their future," said Ashley Heidenreich, Culinary Operations Manager at Baldwin Wallace.
Browns Director of Player Engagement Ron Brewer said he hopes to continue the program for seasons to come because the value that program and others they plan can carry on well beyond their playing days.
"It's a skill to learn. One thing we want to do is just give them things that prep them for life. And so we want them to eat nutritionally, that will help them on the field, but really learning how to cook yourself is another skill to learn," Brewer said. "I feel like every year in the past three years every class has come back and said that this is one of the funnest things that they've done. And obviously when they go back home and get older, whether they're cooking for family members or significant others, it's a skill that they can really enjoy off the field so we want to keep this going."
