Learn To Cook

I've mentioned it before. I love to cook. In fact, I like to cook so much that I do most of the cooking in my household as well as blog about the things I cook. Even loving to cook, sometimes I just don't want to cook. Inspiration runs dry, work runs long, training takes precedent, life happens, or I'm just tired, and I'd rather not. That happens to me, and I really like doing it. I imagine that if I didn't like cooking or felt like I sucked at it, that situation would only be worse. Let me tell you, though, that I think I get more good-man points in my house by cooking than by almost anything else I do (even more than taking out the trash, which apparently is "easy" and not worth many points). Every time my wife comes into the kitchen or in from working and sees me preparing food (or better, finishing preparing food), there's excitement and appreciation in her eyes that cannot be expressed quite as fully in words. Life here is good when I'm cooking, even when the kids are completely grossed out by the inclusion of things like vegetables and "healthy stuff," which is pretty much always.

So, good men out there, if you're not doing it already, start cooking. Maybe you're like my dad. He's so bad at cooking that we'd beg him not to as kids; he'd even wreck Kool-Aid, which is essentially impossible. I too used to be pretty bad at cooking, but then I did what many guys do really well: I watched a lot of tv (not a good way to earn good-man points unless you're following these instructions): Food TV. For a few years, I watched that channel all the time (well, as much as I could), and then I tried to do the things I was seeing. It's really not that complicated, it turns out, and there's no need to turn all gourmet. If tv isn't your route, then you could take a cooking class or even get some books. Really, the fundamentals of good cooking start with replicating recipes, grow with paying attention to what works and what fails, and then capitalizing on the successes. Eventually, you even start to understand things like fat-to-acid ratios and the balancing of sweet and salty, and then you can just start making stuff up as you go... making up good stuff as you go. Before you know it, even within just a few tries, you can even whip up some date-style food for you and your partner and do some serious impressing. Romance, check. On a day-to-day basis, you get everyday-romance, check. Win-win. Seriously.

Of all of the things I do around the house, cooking is probably the most treasured. I know other guys that do a lot of cooking too but that aren't the main cook, as I am. They get massive credit for being able to take up the hearth, so to speak, when their other is kind of on the burn-out, really busy, or tired. All I can say is... it's a good thing that they learned to cook!

If you think it's lame, then you're missing that cooking involves hot things, fire (frequently enough), experiments like chemistry only without the bad grades or poisonous fumes, boiling oil on occasion, and lots of cool tools and gadgets, many of which are very closely akin to power tools for obliterating food and turning it into the kind of mush that every boy loves to play with. Plus, making certain things (like meat or bread) just feels studly when you're doing it.

Nice guys who are too hands-to-yourselves to have an other yet, talk about opening doors for you.... Learn to cook. Guys with others, talk about opening doors for you.... Learn to cook!