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Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

Thoughts on golf, cooking and parenthood

I don’t play golf.

Actually, at 48 years old, I’ve just started playing golf, but that’s a story for later in this column. The point is, even though I’ve just started playing golf, I’m terrible at it. So the former statement is true, and it’s safe to say that I don’t play golf.

As a kid, my best friends started playing golf when they were around 8 years old. They’re scratch golfers today. The bug never bit me.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a PGA-sanctioned golf tournament — The Magnolia Classic — that came to my hometown of Hattiesburg every year. It was scheduled in the spring, opposite The Masters.

In the early days, The Magnolia Classic brought some big names to the Wednesday Po-Am: Clint Eastwood, Glen Campbell and plenty of pro athletes. My school gave us that day off and my friends and I would get to the Hattiesburg Country Club early, hang out in the parking lot and ask players if we could caddy for them. I knew nothing about caddying and even less about golf, but the gig paid well, and anything was better than being in school. For years, that was my only exposure to golf.

Eventually the tournament moved to Madison, Miss. and changed its name. Years later, Mississippi’s Viking Range Corporation took over the sponsorship duties of one of the South’s premier golf events. Viking is all about food and cooking and eating. I am all about food and cooking and eating. Cooking and golf — they’re not such strange bedfellows.

The past several years, Viking has used their extensive contacts in the culinary world to bring some of the world’s most famous chefs to Mississippi to host cooking demonstrations during the tournament.

This year, Food Network star Tyler Florence will be hosting two demos on Halloween afternoon, at 1 and 3 p.m. Other chefs will be in the Viking Culinary Tent on Thursday, Oct. 29 and Friday, Oct. 30.

Sunday, Nov. 1, I will be in my usual spot on the final day doing the last demo of the tournament. I will be demonstrating recipes from my new book, “Dispatches From My South.”

The book won’t officially be released until Nov. 3, but I’ll have advance copies on hand for those who are interested.

Before my Sunday demo, my friend and talented Mississippi chef Louis Bruno will be cooking at noon.

Even if you’re not a golfer, even if you don’t know anything about golf, even if you don’t even like golf, come out and have a bite, meet a chef and support the cause.