Tonight, two-time NBA champion Chris Bosh has a big game. His second-in-the-East Miami Heat are up against the top team in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City Thunder. It's a rematch of the 2012 NBA Finals (when Bosh won his first championship), nationally broadcast, and he'll have to share defensive duties guarding Kevin Durant, who hasn't scored less than thirty points in his last eleven games.

And so yesterday, on the eve of all this, we talked to him about cooking. Why? Well, we already talked to him about basketball, actually a few months before he won that first championship against the Thunder. And he just did this video talking about it for the Off the Court program the NBA and American Express are doing. We were curious. So we talked about his father's cooking, his own cooking for his kids, and that one time he ate nachos thirty minutes before a game started.

ESQUIRE.COM: Let's go all the way back. You grew up in Dallas. When you were a kid, was it your mom or your dad who cooked most often in the house?

CHRIS BOSH: I would say it was about eighty percent my mom and twenty percent my dad. He began cooking because my mom would swap out. But he was really bad at first, and then he just got to, like, okay. [Laughs]

ESQ: He didn't have any specialties?

CB: No, he didn't have any specialities. He wasn't that good. He'll probably get mad and be like, Man don't tell them that! [Laughs] But he wasn't that good.

ESQ: Was he more of a "Let's order pizza tonight" kind of guy?

CB: No. He was going to save money. It was like, We have to survive right now and getting some food and saving money is more important, so I'm going to cook it myself, and that wasn't always a good time.

ESQ: Was there something he'd cook that was just inedible?

CB: Well, we ended up making it edible because it was there for breakfast, but he'd make fried hot dog sandwiches, and we had to take that on our way to the bus stop in the morning. Times were rough man, he had to make it happen.

ESQ: Fried hot dog sandwiches. How'd he make those?

CB: Well, he would take the skillet, cut the hot dog in half, and boom, fry each side: fried hot dogs. Eventually we would start putting some cheese on there, toast the bread, you know, add some mustard, and doctor it up and make it edible.

ESQ: White bread?

CB: Yeah, some white bread, lightly toasted, and you make it happen.

ESQ: What about your mother though? What was your favorite thing that she cooked?

CB: Aw man, my mom, she cooked a pot roast. That was, like, a big-time Sunday, you know what I mean? That was the best we could get, pot roast. When she cooked pot roast, that was a good day. She put in work for that with the potatoes and carrots together. It was great.

ESQ: Did the recipe passed down to you?

CB: It did not. You know, I never asked for it. Maybe that's something I should ask for. That's a good one. I never asked for it.

ESQ: You should. My mom recently gave me a handwritten cookbook of all her recipes.

CB: Yeah, that was nice, because I'm not giving my kids my recipes. They're going to have to figure it out themselves. [Laughs]

ESQ: When you were a kid, was there any meal that you would request on your birthday?

CB: My favorite was always smothered pork chops. Smothered pork chops. That would be my request if I ever had one, and it was pretty consistent. She would fry the pork chop first in that good ol' fat. Then she would make like a gravy concoction with like flour and water, of course, and mushrooms — like a cream of mushrooms — and then she'd finish it off the pork chops in that sauce and it was pretty good and then you take that out and then pour the gravy over that and the rice.

ESQ: Was it having kids that inspired you to cook more?

CB: Absolutely. You know, a quick story: My wife — at the time, she was my girlfriend — she had these friends, and one time we were over at their house for Thanksgiving, and their father was cooking. And he had two daughters, and they were like, Dad, can you cook us this? Oh dad, you should make this! And that day, it just kind of clicked. I'm like, Man, that's how I can keep my kids coming back to me.

ESQ: See, what I thought you were going to say was, This is how I can impress a man's daughter.

CB: [Laughs] Yeah, I'm trying to make it tough on whoever marries my daughter. They're going to have their hands full. I'ma make it tough on them.

ESQ: So who'd you learn from once you started getting into cooking?

CB: I have a chef. I saw him chopping up the vegetables, and I said "I want to do that, can you teach me from the ground up?" I had to work on him for a few months because he's like, I'm not going to do that because, just my luck, you'll cut yourself, and I can't explain that to Pat and coach and stuff. I was like, Man, come on.

ESQ: That is a fair argument, though. Your hands are pretty valuable.

CB: Yeah, I get it, I get it. But something had to give. I was like, You could teach me, or I'm going to go out on my own, and he was like, All right, take it easy. [Laughs]

ESQ: Do you have a go-to recipe?

CB: Right now it's roast chicken.

ESQ: Do you have a special technique?

CB: The way I was taught was different than other ways. I was taught to flatten the chicken out. Cut it in half, and flatten the chicken out. I put it in the skillet and cook it on both sides for a little first, and season it a little first. Get that crispy skin. And then you can put the vegetables on top, let them marry each other a little bit and get that taste going.

ESQ: Do you cover it in the oven?

CB: No. I leave it open and let all that goodness sit in there.

ESQ: What temperature?

CB: Usually you put it at 375 and let it sit there for 40 minutes.

ESQ: Does your hankering for a late-night snack change whether you've won or lost?

CB: [Laughs] You know what? No. I've learned to take both the same way. It's like, Hey I need this good meal because I'm sad, or Hey, I need this because we won, and I worked hard. [Laughs]

ESQ: Has there ever been a game — either in the NBA or maybe high school — when you ate a meal beforehand, and it didn't sit right throughout the game?

CB: I remember in high school, I ate some nachos probably like an hour, half-hour before the game, and it's kind of gross, but a little of it came up while I was running — you know you get that burp — and I literally coughed at the same time, and it got caught in my nose, and it was during the game. And all that acid from my stomach — I couldn't see, and I had to keep playing.

ESQ: Did you have the ball, or were you playing defense?

CB: I can't remember. I just remember that feeling.

ESQ: Who's a pickier eater, your son Jackson, or LeBron?

CB: Oh boy. I'm going to have to go with LeBron. He likes what he likes; he's not going to venture out too far. I say that because I'm an adventurer as far as food as concerned. I'm going to step out there and try something. But 'Bron, he's comfortable where he is, and my son he's still got — he could still be molded.

ESQ: This brings me to what was going to be my strange question for the end, but you brought it up: If it had been properly preserved, would you ever eat raptor meat?

CB: Raptor meat?

ESQ: Yeah, like dinosaur raptor meat.

CB: Uh, yeah. I wouldn't be the first one, right? [Laughs]

ESQ: I don't know! What if you were the first one?

CB: I'd try that, sure, yeah. It just couldn't be, like, anybody cooking it. It'd have to be, like, a raptor meat specialist or a restaurant that specializes in it. I'd be like, Sure, I'll take that.

ESQ: What's the strangest actual thing you've eaten?

CB: I've eaten a lot of strange things. I've eaten something called a razor clam. They just call it that because it likes like the old-school razors in the old-school barber shops. I can't even think of some of the things I've tried. I'm sure I've eaten somewhere where they're like, "This is such and such," and I'm like, "Give it here." My friends think octopus is weird. I'm like, Man, it's not. This is normal for me.

ESQ: Do you have an apron?

CB: Yes.

ESQ: Are you secure in wearing an apron? I'm asking because whenever I wear one, I feel relatively emasculated.

CB: [Laughs] I feel comfortable wearing it. Because me and my chef, we spend so much time together. Every morning, it's just us two. My house is going — kids running out, my wife is running in and out — but I like to sit down and have breakfast. In that time, you develop a big-time relationship with who's cooking for you, and they're always wearing aprons. Now don't get me wrong: Plain white apron.

ESQ: You speak in the video about how with cooking there's this sort of peacefulness. What do you seek from cooking aside from a good meal?

CB: I'm seeking a getaway. The thing about it is, you can't think about other stuff when you're cooking, if you want a good meal. So it allows me just to focus on that experience. Because food is an experience. People are fascinated by it. They're like, Man, you can cook? And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, let me cook for you guys. And I want it to be a good meal. I like that pressure. Because you know, you've got to do the little things — just like in basketball — to execute a good meal. You've got to pay close attention to everything. You've got to know how to chop the right way, have everything right so it'll taste good. Next thing you know, you look up, and it's three hours later, and you're like, Okay, damn. I've gotta go to bed.

ESQ: When was the last time you had a fried hot dog sandwich?

CB: Oh boy, it'd have to have been in eighth grade. [Laughs] A long time.

Nate Hopper Associate editor Nate Hopper is an associate editor for Esquire magazine.

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