Cooking is Manly

For me there is nothing more enjoyable than cooking for people. Well, maybe one more thing...That would be hanging out with my daughter. I know what you were thinking...degenerates. I've always thought that being a chef would be an amazing vocation but I'm pretty sure that this activity is best enjoyed as a hobby. The long hours, constant pressure, difficult patrons...no thanks.

For me and my gluttonous circle of friends, cooking elaborate and often thematic meals for one another is the highlight of the week. I'd like to give myself the credit for being so culinarily clever but the truth is growing up my parents hosted elaborate monthly parties with their circle of friends and dubbed the group "Gourmet" in a nod to the magazine. As a kid I was blown away with the painstaking and authentic culinary and cultural detail involved...and at times the brazen drunkenness that accompanied the events when they were held at our house. The 1970's were indeed a different time.

A French friend of mine said that for a man cooking can be a pleasurable hobby and for the women, it is often just another task to be performed on a long list of daily drudgery. Not sure about that but the theory is interesting. I recently cooked dinner for an old friend and one of her lovely friends who I've come to fancy as the Brits would say. I'm pretty convinced that women like it when a man knows his way around the kitchen. Or at least his way around the dishwasher.

Fortunately, the idea that cooking is unmanly seems to have vanished. It is indeed a noble job from the line cook to the sous and executive chef. A couple of years ago I met Jacques Pepin, and let me just say, the guy is more manly than most construction workers I met working demolition when I lived in California.