The Uber Male Ego - On Baking [# 2]

"There are certain natural instincts that all men have.
Hunting, gathering, protecting his territory…cooking is not one that you usually
group into this list. I think you would be remiss if you didn’t halfway admit to
yourself that there is something abnormally mannish about Pyrex pans and beating
eggs, though. Baking, I think, is the ninth manly instinct, the one that
directly follows scratching and comes before hot dog eating contests, and the
one that gets overlooked more than any other. So lets just call it what it is:
cooking is manly.

I see them everyday, those masculine chefs that stare
out at me from the covers of their glossy pages in the cooking section. Wolfgang
Puck, Jamie Oliver, Bobby Flay, Jacques Pepin….Julia child's….all of them, with
their meaty muscles and messy hair, all proclaiming for the world to see…I CAN
COOK! LOOK AT ME! They look good on those covers. And then there are the cooking
babes, not your homely mom types of yesteryear’s kitchens. These are pure grade
A fresh meat hotties right out of a sex-laden subliminal Food Network
commercial. They tempt you with their succulent flavors and exotic textures,
Rachel Ray domineering over them all with her toothy grin and golden spatula
saying, bow to me, oh, cooking legions… I am your queen! You will ebb and sway
with every sauce I make, with every crab cake I fry and put in a lovely little
decorative parfait glass over a bed of leafy greens. I can make a complete meal
in under thirty minutes…and it’s not Zataran’s Easy Make Jambalaya, it’s a real
meal! Hahahahaha!

Maybe that’s a bit far, not too far mind you.
Rearranging the cookbook section this last week did make me want to put some
time in the kitchen, so baking does make the In list this week. Time spent
slaving over an open gas flame somehow gets me in touch with those ancient genes
of roasting legs of Wildebeest over crude fires. It’s got to be manly if I do
it, right? Cooking comes in spurts for me and is over with before I even finish
the leftovers, so it’s probably back to Zataran’s next week. It was good while
it lasted. Although, I am fond of the cool little cooking names that all the big
time chef's give themselves. My favorite, is of course, "The Naked Chef",
although I do tend to like "Alton Brown the Science Kitchen Clown" for a chef
name. Since "The Naked Chef" is taken though, I think I'll take The
Promiscuously Nude Chef. That has a nice ring to it and at least makes you want
to tune in to the TV show."

Blogged by Lane : Life and Times in the Fastlane , post : of Cooking and stalin

O.k I love this post. I love the lyrical quality and the words he uses to convey a complete thought in transit. Lane goes to great lengths to describe here. It is honest --- he is not acting macho for anyone. He is simply stating his opinion. Subtle hints of sarcasm . And this post is very masculine. I think quite SEXY!