My friends, family, office colleagues and even acquaintances — including the elderly woman who has a beautiful house surrounded by a farm in a village in Coorg, the cook at the homestay where I spent my vacation a couple of months back — know that I love cooking.
Once I visited a store nearby and found a rustic aluminium tea kettle. Being tea-lover I fell in love with it. Should I buy it to use for a bonfire night with friends in the hills or paint it in quirky colours and place it on pile of books in my living room, or should I use it when I invite friends for tea and serve in glasses as in a local tea shop? Thoughts were already brewing like the golden brown smoke steeping into the water from the tea bag.
So what happens to a man is so passionate about cooking? Based on my experience and people I know these are the seven signs you can find when a man cooks.
1. Gets back to the roots
One starts to cook with one of his favorite food no matter easy or difficult and takes some time to understand the process, techniques and then slowly starts trying different cuisines out of curiosity. In meantime he explores by reading on Internet, watching cook shows, and books and sometime goes for a culinary vacation. After a certain stage when he has learnt some of the techniques, or uniqueness of recipes he starts hunting for authentic recipes and tries to replicate in his kitchen. The fisherman’s style fish curry which I made once was the recipe of the woman who sells fish on my street.
2. Brings home local specialities, gadgets from travel
He loves travelling and off course not only misses to buy his favourite single malt scotch but also brings the local food staples, kitchen gadgets back home. On my recent trip to Coorg I shopped for high quality spices like cardamom, cloves for my masala chai and mini cheese grater, pizza cutter from my recent Europe trip. Seriously he behaves like a kid who jumps up and down on seeing his favorite BMW miniature in a toy shop.
3. Knows everything in your kitchen
By now, he has spent more time in kitchen than his wife so he literally knows where every item is placed and sometimes even reminds her about the items which was purchased couple of months back but not used yet. At times she checks with him before writing down the monthly grocery list.
4. Plans weekly grocery shopping
He decides what new recipe to explore for the coming week, makes a plan and happily picks up his eco-friendly bag to nearby vegetable shop or sometimes is ready to drive even 5 km far from his home to pick up some asparagus or celery sticks for his tryst with French cuisine which makes his wife think he has gone crazy. Oh Ladies, maybe we have gone mad but we solve your biggest problem on the earth. “What’s for dinner tonight?” Or “what to cook tonight?”
5. After a business trip, talks of the food, not the work
No matter if he has closed a big business deal or implements a project successfully once he is back home he talks more about the sushi he tasted on the streets of Japan or the quality of the meat for hours. Once he is done with it if time permits he speaks about his business trip probably in less than two sentence.
6. Cook, eat, party
He welcomes his friends and family with his apron and loves to host for a superb three course meal and surprises them with variety of cuisines.
7. Happiness quotient
Cooking not only is a stress-buster after a long day at office but also becomes handy to surprise your wife with her favorite food after a fight or quarrel over vacation or money matters. Men who loves to cook knows that the secret recipe for the success from board room to bedroom is actually via kitchen.
Happy cooking, mate!
pravin.b.k@gmail.com
