Korie's DeLucious Turnovers

Ames, IA - Iowa State point guard Korie Lucious had a dream. Well, two dreams actually. One was to play basketball at the highest collegiate level. The other was to provide delicious baked pastries to a hungry public. This year, Lucious is making the second dream a reality for the first time.

His specialty? A treat Korie calls his "DeLucious Turnovers," a kind of flaky pastry made with flour, sugar and a heaping spoonful of mistakes.

Lucious explains: "I knew I wanted my DeLucious Turnovers to reflect my personality, so I make each one blindfolded and with one hand tied behind my back. It makes it a little difficult to see what I'm doing and to mix the ingredients correctly, but I feel like this process reflects my play on the basketball court."

This unconventional baking method has its fans, but also more than a few detractors. "Korie's a talented chef, there's no question about that," Iowa State fan Kelly Snyder said. "I just think he'd be a better chef if he just took a little more time with each pastry, paid a little more attention to the ingredients in the mix and took the blindfold off."

"And Korie really needs to stop serving every turnover to his customers from behind his back," Ms. Snyder continued. "It's weird, and he keeps dropping them on the floor."

But Lucious is undaunted by his critics. "Look man, I'm making pastries the only way I know how; the way I learned on the streets of Milwaukee. Yeah, it's unconventional, but these days you have to have a flashy game to get noticed, you know?"

When this reporter confessed that he didn't know that pastry chefs needed to have "flashy game," Lucious explained, "Yeah, you see, every chef's competing with every other chef out there. It's all about family, the Iowa State family; but it's also about the Lucious family. One goal, the NBA: The National Bakers Association. If I'm gonna make it to the top, I need to stand out."

Korie Lucious' dedication to his craft is admirable, and it seems to turn out well about half the time. To date, Korie has created 24 pastries that were deemed "excellent" by his customers, and 24 turnovers that either burnt in the oven, fell on the floor or contained a fatal mixture of yeast and arsenic.

Mr. O.J. Totzelberger, a source close to the Iowa State basketball program; agreed to comment on Lucious' new bakery on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Totzelberger isn't confident about its chances for success, "Shit, we took Korie to school all last year. All summer. Tried to drill into his head the fundamentals of baking into his head; tried to explain how he needs to focus on the basics before trying this razzle-dazzle BS. But nothing sticks. Korie's not a dumb guy, but he insists on doing things his own way, no matter how head-slappingly stupid the results may be."

For now, it remains to be seen if Korie Lucious can harness his raw baking talent and create pastries that are truly memorable. Unfortunately, it seems as if Lucious remains set in his ways. "You know, I don't think the blindfold method is giving me enough of a challenge anymore. I need to switch it up. Wait'll you see what I got planned for next week. Don't want to give it away, but it involves my boy Melvin, a ladder and the fifth row of the student section in Hilton Coliseum."