Some guys I know don't consider cooking a worthwhile venture. Besides the occasional stint behind the grill, they'd rather bask in blissful ignorance than feed themselves in more than three steps: stab, chew, swallow.
But ask any woman (or man that already knows how) why it is better to be a kitchen savvy dude and you'll start to see what these guys are missing.
Whether it's because they think it takes too much time and too much effort or wrongly assume it's a woman's job, men who never learn to cook are losing a huge opportunity to take their man skills to the next level.
8 Reasons Regular Guys Should Learn To Cook
1. Chicks dig it
There isn't a woman alive immune to a man who can make her a delicious meal. Step up to the plate boys, we're begging you.
2. Life skills are manly
You can fix your car, hunt wild animals and build a camp fire. Shouldn't you know how to feed yourself without a drive-thru?
3. You'll save money
Though there's a good chance you're single if you never learned to cook (see point #1), a home cooked meal is a much cheaper date night (or singles night) than dinner for two at Chez Fancy -- particularly with the 150% wine mark up common at most restaurants.
4. It's faster than going out
Fancy date meals aside, cooking at home is almost always faster than going out--so long as you know what you're doing. Once you have a few basic skill down, you can stop wasting your time in fast food spots simply because you don't know what else to eat.
5. Guy Fieri shouldn't be better than you at anything
Food Network star Guy Fieri has bad hair, bad clothes and douchey sunglasses, but the dude knows how to cook. Are you going to let him upstage you like that? Of course you aren't.
6. Your puppy (aka girl magnet) will eat better
My notoriously adorable puppy Toaster loves salad scraps (sugar snap peas are his favorite), eggs, meats, fish, and pretty much anything else we're willing to share. A balanced diet is as good for dogs as it is for people (just don't give them onions, garlic or grapes).
7. You might lose weight
Cooking is one of the easiest ways to improve your diet and stick to reasonable portions. This is a recipe for weight loss, if you're willing to swallow it.
8. You might like it
Cooking is relaxing, fun, creative, purposeful and, hopefully, delicious. Why wouldn't you want to add this skill to your tool belt?
Why do you guys like to cook?
Originally published at Summer Tomato, where you can find more healthy eating tips.
Follow Darya Pino, Ph.D on Twitter: www.twitter.com/summertomato
I love to eat and I love my own cooking
Highest quality for lowest cost
Greatest control over exactly what you're eating (avoid unwanted/unhealthy ingredients)
Is in some cases the only way to get a given dish just the way I really want it
A corollary to the above, is in many cases the only way to get beloved esoteric or nostalgic dishes you can't find elsewhere
I produce a lot of food on my property; only logical I know what to do with it
Cooking, which includes not just the activity of cooking but imagining and inventing dishes and menus, is a great creative challenge, and as such is extremely interesting and rewarding. It is also virtually infinite, all the possibilities of cuisines and ingredients.
Cooking for others is a fundamental type of sharing, and as such is very rewarding, and can effectively be shared with very many, since so many people love to eat, even people with which you may have nothing else in common
Over the years I just happen to have become my favorite non-professional cook, and my wife's. Now, if you could have your favorite cook make dinner for you every day would you turn down the opportunity? Probably not, and I don't either.
...ain't that the truth. My wife was very happy when I told her I wanted to learn to cook. I was most interested in sauces and have actually gotten fairly good at it. Now she brags to her friends that I cook better than her, which I do not entirely agree with. Some things maybe, but certainly not everything. We enjoy some really fun 4 to 6 person dinner parties and are eating better. So it's been a big plus all around. I highly recommend it. Now if only there was a way to enjoy cleaning up.
This is thanks to my mother, who insisted that each child cook a meal for the family once a week. If I recall well, it was Wednesday for me.
The Food Network is the MTV of Food. MTV used to play music, now they're entertainment ABOUT music. The Food Network is entertainment ABOUT food, they don't teach anyone to cook.
Neither will you learn how to cook from a book. Written recipes won't teach you to cook any more than having sheet music will teach you to play piano. There are too many variables in recipes that always lead to frustration.
The best way to free yourself from recipes and cook like a chef at home is to examine the basic cooking methods. When you learn HOW to saute, broil, grill, roast, then you can create your own recipes from what you have on hand.
Knowing HOW to cook anything is a skill that will save you time, money at the grocery store, improve your health, reunite your family over dinner, eat a greater variety of foods, and have this skill for the rest of your life.
Chef Todd Mohr
WebCookingClasses.com
10. Man toys. Every guy likes tools. We love whirling danger, things that spin, chop, and wield fire.
11. It keeps your Facebook posts from being boring. Lord knows we don't live a flashy lifestyle, but I get so many comment on observations about food and posts about what I'm cooking for dinner.
12. It enhances restaurant dining. As I've become a better cook, I've become more discriminating in terms of palate. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure I can cook as well as the cooks at restaurants I've visited, and will try to replicate dishes. And even when they're way out of my league, my wife and I can try to parse how the chef made the dish. I can discuss why making a good demi-glace is too time-consuming to try at home, or try to figure out some hidden spice component of the soup, but at any rate we're rarely at a loss for something to talk about.
13. Because you can be sophisticated. I love nothing better than a good burger on the grill, but sometimes it's fun to show off knowledge of gastronomy that reveal that more refined palate. Because it's sorta cool to be the guy who can work all day with a chainsaw, clean up, and make my wife another dinner that she raves over.