Do You Smell What The Rocket Is Cooking?

We joined Houston’s big man and resident Francophile Clint Capela for a test of his culinary skills and to find out what he’s stirring up for the playoffs.

- Sam Alipour

“Bonjour!” chef Clemence Gossett says. Clint Capela’s eyes nearly spring from his skull. “You’re French!” the Rockets’ 6-foot-10 Swiss center exclaims, before they jabber in their go-to tongue. He knew he’d be spending his day off in LA facing me in a bake-off at the Gourmandise School inside the Santa Monica Place mall—it was his idea— but he didn’t know it would be with a real live French person in charge. Now he feels confident. “You will get destroyed,” Capela tells me. “How about loser washes dishes?” I say, to which he replies: “Let’s do it. I know you’re a microwave guy.” This is true.

4 P.M.: LA CLASSE COMMENCE 

In a hands-on demo, Chef Clemence shows us everything we need to know about making quiche—a French pastry I’ve never tasted but imagine to be like a deep-dish pizza with eggs where the tomatoes are supposed to be. Advantage: the big guy. Capela’s love affair with French cuisine dates to his birth in Geneva, the French-speaking Swiss city where he grew up after his African immigrant parents parted ways. Capela discovered basketball at 13, and the game discovered Capela two years later, leading him to a training academy—and all the quiche he could eat—in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. It’s clear that Houston’s 23-year-old hoops wunderkind left his heart there. “I love everything about French culture,” he says, before falling into reverie about Paris, healthy savories and romantic rituals. “On dates, I do dinner, a movie and I bring flowers sometimes.”