Par Fork!
The Golf Resort Cookbook
Cookbooks offer readers a number of ways to enjoy their forays into the kitchen, from exotic foreign cuisine to celebrity cooks to diet and exercise to sex. The author, a chef and cooking instructor, combines her dual passions of food and golf to offer readers a gourmet cookbook and travel guide to her favorite American golf resorts.
Walters, who has written two other cookbooks on guest ranches and winter retreats, divides this book into four regions: the West, the Southwest, the Southeast, and the Northeast. Describing nineteen resorts around the country and their prized dining rooms, she paints a picture of each with obvious delight. For The Lodge at Pebble Beach, she begins with a short history and a description of architecture and dining places. A sidebar lists the address, phone number, golf courses and their designers, available holes, accommodations, rates, and other activities.
On the next page she records the highlights of dining, golf pro tips (“If you’re hitting the ball fat try moving the ball back in your stance”), and the course’s signature hole (“Scenic par 3 marches straight to the ocean, with the wind a factor all 106 yards to the green”).
Walters offers recipes from The Lodge’s breakfast menu: Granola with Montmorency Dried Cherries, a White Plate Egg Special, and Casa Health Bars. Her choices from their dinner menu are Crab Cakes with Citrus Aioli, Fennel and Endive Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette, Red Wine-Braised Beef Short Ribs, and Strawberry and Rhubarb Crisp.
Golf and cooking both require hand-to-eye coordination and skill. So do some of the recipes in this book. Many are dishes that would be most comfortable at a fancy dinner party. Happily, most, like Bock Beer Cheese Soup and Apricot Ginger Sea Bass, sound elaborate but are easy to prepare. Walters’s chatty voice in each recipe helps to instruct and soothe an apprehensive cook’s nerves. She knits the book together with culinary tips.
Once thought to be solely the province
of white businessmen, doctors, and lawyers, golf has been made accessible to a wider range of people by players like Tiger Woods. This book will appeal to this new generation of golfers, who want great food, water sports, shopping, croquet, a massage, or a horseback ride with their game.
Reviewed by
Nancy K. Allen
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
