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Culinary Currents
June 2005
Rough Creek Lodge: Let Them Eat Fish!
By Peter Langlois
 Chef
Gerard Thompson of Glen Rose, Texas-based Rough Creek Lodge, has found his
culinary niche some 90 miles Southwest of Dallas on the edge of North
Texas as it meets the Texas Hill Country, in an area renowned for rolling
hills, bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and abundant wild life including
deer, dove, wild turkey, boar, bass, catfish, and more.
This 40-room world-class resort is situated on 11,000
acres, and during the week caters to corporate getaways (you have to love
those rope courses) that take management out of the box and thrust them
into elements that only a Human Resource Exec could enjoy. This place
seems like the perfect environment for industrial psychologists to read
who’s really on the front burner, Machiavellians or Team Players. I like
the fact that Nature has a way of disposing of office politics and
substituting survival of the fittest and smartest.
Weekends turn to tourism with couples and families
getting away from the hubbub of the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex to enjoy
catch-and-release fishing or hunting for in-season game to take home. And
that brings us to the more interesting angles as to what really goes on in
the kitchen at the Rough Creek Lodge.
While one might assume that this is really a man’s world,
today’s woman is easily as comfortable in this environment that encourages
her to participate in the hunt, or turn to Chef Gerard for some great
cooking lessons. I assume the opposite is true as well: While the wife is
out hunting, fishing, or running the rope course, a husband could be
enjoying the spa, or picking up a spatula in Chef’s kitchen. Isn’t
equality of the sexes great?
Since this is a Lodge, Chef Gerard’s Cooking Lessons are
bent toward the preparation of game, and he teaches how to cook “pheasant
pot stickers, quail quesadillas,” and other interesting dishes at home.
It’s a different story in the 80-seat restaurant, where fish is the big
deal, accounting for about 40 percent of orders. Like many of his current
counterparts, Chef Gerard believes in starting with excellent products and
then getting out of the way to insure that “clean flavor lines” ring true
and great food is not jeopardized with heavy sauces.
To that end, he connects to fish wholesalers in New York,
L.A. and Honolulu by phone at about one o’clock in the afternoon each day
after the catch has been brought in fresh. Using FedEx, his fish arrive in
Glen Rose by eleven the next morning, and is on the table that evening.
When I was chatting with him, his fish of the day was wild striped marlin,
and he was working on just what dishes would be the perfect complements.
His menu is balanced with several game dishes, as well as savory dishes
prepared with Prime beef.
Another important aspect to this Lodge is the fact that
Chef Gerard, his two sous chefs and a staff of fifteen, prepare everything
from scratch, including desserts. That’s a great guest-to-staff pampering
ratio. I’m getting it: This is how the other half lives! How could one
blame Chef Gerard for choosing this venue to display the culinary
knowledge he gained through working with chefs and guests in San Antonio,
Houston, Columbus, Ohio, Santa Barbara, Calif. (San Ysidro Ranch) and
several other stops along the way? There’s nothing like a great gourmet
meal at the end of a hard day in the woods!
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Peter Langlois is founder of
www.RestaurantU.com: Tools of the Trade for Business, for School, for
Free!,co-editor of
Weekly Restaurant Connections (e-Newsletter), Culinary Instructor,
The Art Institute of Houston-Culinary, and Management, Marketing
and e-business Facilitator at The University of
Phoenix (Houston). Langlois is also a Malcolm
Baldrige 2005 Ambassador. He has a Political Science degree
from Michigan State University (Modern International Chinese Relations)
and an M.B.A from the University of Houston (Marketing and Business
Strategies). If you enjoyed this feature, you’ll probably enjoy his free
newsletter available on
www.RestaurantU.com.
Contact information: 832.860.5595 or
peter@restaurantu.com
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