As At Ease In The Kitchen As On The Field, Orioles Step Up To (fill) The Plates

Brian Roberts finds working in the kitchen relaxing.

Gregg Zaun likes the challenge of cooking for large groups.

And for Jeremy Guthrie, cooking reminds him of his years in Spain.

These Orioles, who make their living on the baseball field, told me that from time to time they like to kick back in the kitchen.

Yesterday, they were set to display some of their culinary prowess at an Orioles Cook-Off held at the ESPN Zone restaurant in downtown Baltimore to benefit the Maryland Food Bank.

The players brought different levels of experience to the endeavor. Roberts described himself as an apprentice, Guthrie a specialist and Zaun an old hand.

Roberts planned to make fish tacos, a dish he learned by watching his wife, Diana, prepare it.

Zaun, who as a teenager worked as a line cook in a restaurant in his Southern California hometown, touted his rendition of chicken enchiladas. This dish, he said, is known throughout the major leagues.

"It is so popular that my teammates from other teams are asking me to make trays of it when they come to town," said Zaun, who has played on seven different major league teams.

"Shawn Camp's wife wanted the recipe, and so did B.J. Ryan's wife," Zaun said, referring to the mates of his former teammates on the Toronto Blue Jays. Ryan has since been signed by the Chicago Cubs.

The enchiladas take longer to prepare than the 30-minute limit dishes in yesterday's lineup were supposed to adhere to, but Zaun contends the flavor it produces is worth the extra effort.

"You put a couple of those on a plate with a dollop of sour cream and maybe some hot sauce. ... It is tremendous," Zaun said.

Guthrie, 30, was reluctant to describe himself as a cook. But he said he was proficient at "making a few things," among them a dish he called a Spanish tortilla, a mixture of potatoes and egg. The dish is common in the north of Spain, a region he lived in during his two years of service for the Mormon Church.

In telephone interviews conducted from clubhouses and team buses in the days leading up to yesterday's cook-off, Roberts, Guthrie and Zaun talked about their cooking.

Roberts and Zaun said that it is primarily an off-season activity. The demands of travel and the fact that they usually work nights don't present them with many opportunities to make summertime suppers, they said. But in the fall and winter, when their daily routines somewhat resemble normal domestic life, they hang out in the kitchen.