Stir crazy

Look hard enough in Baton Rouge, and you can find culinary talent lurking in unexpected places.

Like behind bars.

A pair of inmate cooks—no, let’s call them chefs—proved their chops last year at a tailgate-style cook-off held at state police headquarters to raise money for Capital Area United Way. They competed against a dozen other teams based at the public safety compound on Independence Boulevard, such as the fire marshal’s office and the Governor’s Office on Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

Dewayne Coleman of Houston and Roy Frank Jr. of New Iberia decided to reach beyond the usual boundaries of tailgating. Not content with brisket, hamburgers, jambalaya or fried chicken, Coleman, Frank and two other men went wild. They crafted a menu of grilled duck with a vinaigrette cherry sauce over wild rice along with a gumbo of andouille sausage, tasso and chicken.

Coleman and Frank are top chefs of a sort in the cafeteria at the public safety compound. They—like other inmates who have earned trustee status and work on the compound as janitors, groundskeepers, even mechanics—spend off hours at a prison camp in the northern part of the parish known as the State Police Barracks.

Good behavior earns inmates the privilege of cooking at the barracks, and one slip-up sends them right back into the main prison population, officials say. Coleman and Frank have distinguished themselves as quality cooks.

“They are our go-to guys when we need a special meal,” says Sabrina Ballard, the cafeteria’s supervisor of daily operations.

They’re known for their ribs—half-smoked and half-baked. At a dinner honoring a state police colonel, the pair prepared pineapple-marinated rib-eyes with Worcestershire sauce and garlic, Frank says.

Coleman and Frank talked about planning for and entering the cook-off one spring morning while scooping the innards from baked potatoes and preparing one dish for the next day’s lunch: shrimp twice-baked potatoes. They would later sauté shrimp with bell peppers, onion and celery before combining that mixture with the ’tater innards and cheese. All those ingredients would be stuffed back into the skins and popped into the oven.

(Heads up on a little-known lunch joint: the public safety compound’s cafeteria is open to the public. It’s cafeteria food that’s always good and sometimes surprisingly good. The bonus: it’s affordable.)

Coleman and Frank brought experience and education to the tailgating contest. For years, Coleman was an inmate-cook at the Governor’s Mansion, preparing meals for Buddy Roemer, Edwin Edwards, Mike Foster and Kathleen Blanco. Frank has less experience but graduated from the culinary program at Allen Correctional Center.

The cook team—Coleman, Frank and two other experienced cooks no longer at the barracks—narrowed down their cook-off menu from seven initial ideas. The duck was another guy’s suggestion, Coleman says. “I wanted to do an orange glaze, but the cherry went better,” he says. “Everybody is used to an orange glaze.”

They assembled the duck dish in small soufflé cups, layering the wild rice, a sprig of rosemary and the butterflied duck breast followed with the cherry sauce. A sprinkle of chives topped each cup of gumbo.

Attendees at the cook-off flocked to the inmates’ table. “We had a line,” Frank says wistfully. They served 300. Some, undoubtedly, were repeat customers.

One competitor jokingly threatened to overturn the inmates’ table, Coleman says.

Another told the group, “We can’t beat y’all,” Frank says.

“We knew we were going to win,” he says.

“They had the best everything,” says State Police Sgt. Marcus Smith. Smith, one of the agency’s spokespersons, was at the cook-off and tasted the other offerings.

Coleman and Frank lost by a half-point to the GOHSEP team.

“I think y’all were robbed,” Smith says. Months later, he still shakes ?his head at the injustice.

Coleman and Frank learned something in the loss. The winners offered something the second-place guys did not: dessert. This year, they’re heading into the culinary fray with a new team member and a new weapon. “We’ve got the best dessert man in town,” Frank says.

Be warned, other tailgating cook-off teams, the inmates are coming at ya with shrimp gumbo, garlic bread and (drumroll please) Banana Split Cake: bananas, pineapple, strawberry, powdered sugar and a cherry on top. The secret is how it’s all put together, Frank said.

“That’s our ace in the hole.”