English scholar Robert Burton once said, "Cookery has become a noble art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen." It's been a well known fact for thousands of years that people respond to food.
However, what's been lost over time is the appreciation for the skill, time and love that goes into cooking a good meal. In case you gentlemen have forgotten, this Thursday is Valentine's Day, and nothing goes farther with a valentine than a home cooked meal.
If you've never cooked, it doesn't matter. The time and effort you put into a meal on Thursday - like any other day - shows others far more about you than your skill in the kitchen, though only half as much as your skill in the bedroom.
On V-Day, whether you've just started dating or have been married for decades, a home cooked meal is worth more than the finest chocolates and flowers money can buy. Flowers die in a few days and chocolates, as a well known aphrodisiac, can be saved for desert.
Once upon a time, I was a pretty good cook. Maybe I was no Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagasse or maybe even a Rachel Ray, but I could make a few dishes that were considered to be more than just edible. And then something happened.
I became single.
And I realized I had absolutely no reason to spend the time cooking elaborate meals anymore. After all, what's the point of cooking when you have no one to cook for?
From that point on, I just made whatever could be cooked in a microwave in the shortest possible time. Soon, my skills atrophied and decayed to the point to where now, I have trouble making toast, let alone roasting chicken or making a soufflé.
In fact, the other day I tried to boil water using the defrost setting on the microwave, last week I nicked my hand with a butter knife while spreading cream cheese on a bagel, and just yesterday I squished a Twinkie when I put it in my back pocket - note: Twinkies don't taste good heated.
My break-and-bake cookies are always burnt, my hot dog buns are dry and my stomach glows in the dark from all the microwave radiation. It's a safe bet that if I tried to make anything more complicated than a Hot Pocket, lives could be lost.
But what I forgot back when I was rolling crepes and kneading dough was the reason I put so much time and effort into meals. It wasn't that I had nothing better to do, and it certainly wasn't that my palate was too refined for simple take-out, it was that I had found a passion that could be shared with someone else, making us both happier and myself luckier.
If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach - and sometimes through his head but often through other organs - then the door swings both ways. Women are every bit as enticed by cooking as men are.
Based on a Men's Health survey, 70 percent of women are more turned on by a dinner that a man actually cooks than one from a restaurant, and according to a poll of 1,000 Cosmopolitan readers - scoff if you like; it offers insights into the female mind that the American Journal of Psychology simply doesn't - "66 percent of women said they're more likely to have sex with a man after a home-cooked meal."
And this has nothing to do with the food. The investment of time and energy can say more about how a person feels than the quality of the finished product.
If you don't know what to cook, the Internet is overflowing with recipes for all different skill levels. The point is not how good the food looks or even necessarily how it tastes - though it should be edible as nothing ruins a holiday like food poisoning - the point of Valentine's Day is to show appreciation to the romantic interest in your life that can be taken for granted on a day-in/day-out basis.
And the same goes for women. Ladies, don't forget: A little appreciation can go a long way with men, as well - and not just through sex, though that's good too.
A little time and effort on your part can show us we weren't just throwing ours away. Remember, as men, we can be just as happy eating a Hot Pocket as actual food, and without a little reciprocation, you may be eating just that come Valentine's Day.
Be the first to comment on this article!