[Sca-cooks] Today's NY Times... LONG

Wed Aug 28 17:09:35 PDT 2002

Also sprach Jones, Craig:
>Yes Please...
>
>Drakey.

You got it.

Adamantius, who, when he is the benevolent dictator if the planet,
will officially strike the expression "flash-fried" from the English
language

>August 28, 2002
>
>Hey, Man, What's for Dinner?
>By PILAR GUZMAN
>
>IVE days a week and often on weekends, Robert Rosenthal cooks
>breakfast and dinner for his wife and two daughters. His wife,
>Carolyn Kremins, doesn't cook at all.
>
>"It's an amazing luxury because it gives me some time when I get
>home," Ms. Kremins said. "It's a point of pride for me."
>
>Ms. Kremins, 40, is the group publisher of The Week, a
>Manhattan-based news digest. Mr. Rosenthal, 43, is an advertising
>executive. He is also among the 27 percent of American men who,
>according to a study conducted at the University of Minnesota School
>of Public Health, act as primary food handlers for their families.
>These are men for whom grocery shopping, cooking and the
>semi-regular dinner party are as intuitive as reaching for the
>sports page.
>
>But as more men go into the kitchen, more women are heading out,
>often with a smile on their faces. Professional kitchens have long
>been the domain of men, a fact that has hindered the rise of women
>as professional chefs. But at home and to the secret delight of
>women around the country, the rise of lower-pressure supporting
>roles for women in the kitchen might just be the ultimate feminist
>victory.
>
>"I have no sense of regret that I don't cook," said Doreen Small, an
>intellectual property lawyer in Manhattan, whose husband does the
>bulk of the family's cooking. "I could cook anytime I wanted to and
>if I felt it would give me some pleasure." But she doesn't. "More
>power to him because he loves it," Ms. Small added.
>
>Men's cooking for their families is also big business. "Growing male
>interest in cooking is one of the bright spots in the kitchen retail
>market," said Hugh J. Rushing, the executive vice president of the
>Cookware Manufacturers Association. "People used to think cooking
>was a sissified thing."
>
>Used to ‹ and then, "Bam!" The percentage of men in the audience for
>the Television Food Network's programs is 42 percent and rising,
>according to the network; for the shows of some chef-personalities,
>notably the voluble Emeril Lagasse of "Emeril Live" and the antic
>and flame-haired Mario Batali, star of "Molto Mario," the numbers
>are even higher.
>
>"When we do our marketing for prime-time," said Adam Rockmore, the
>network's vice president for marketing, "we are looking for a 50-50
>male-female split, because that is where we think it's heading."
>
>Examining specialty cookware sales is another good way of tracking
>male dollars spent in the marketplace, Mr. Rushing said. "Men tend
>to have no problem buying a special pan for paella, if the recipe
>calls for it," he said, "whereas women will make do with a regular
>skillet or pan." Specialty cookware sales are up 17 percent since
>2000, he added.
>
>According to Dr. Ross Koppel, an adjunct professor of sociology at
>the University of Pennsylvania, the rise of men as primary family
>cooks began in the 1980's. The trend toward men cooking, he said, is
>part of a general one toward "the yuppification of what we eat" that
>has forever raised the stakes and expectations for the food
>Americans put in their mouths ‹ not to mention the requisite gadgets
>used to prepare it.
>
>"It's only since men have been cooking that you can justify the $275
>knife," Dr. Koppel said. All of which has led, in some homes, to the
>replacement of trophy heads on the walls of the den with glistening
>granite trophy kitchens packed tight with All-Clad pans and
>stainless-steel professional-style appliances.
>
>Such trappings aside, though, the notion of a man actually in that
>kitchen, a domestic gladiator basking in the blue glow of his
>humming Viking range while sprinkling $25 sea salt from Brittany
>into pasta water, is a relatively new one.
>
>Indeed, a majority of men still don't have anything to do with the
>kitchen regularly. Instead, they limit their appearances to
>preparations of one or two signature dishes: Dad's banana pancakes,
>for instance, or his blue-ribbon chili or top-secret hamburger mix.
>
>"When men cook it's on special occasions, such as at barbecues or
>under exceptional circumstances," said Samantha Kwan, who is writing
>her doctoral dissertation on food and identity for the sociology
>department at the University of Arizona. Indeed, as sociologists
>have long argued, a man's interest in food preparation is directly
>proportional to the approval he receives from his audience. A
>seminal academic paper on the subject, Ms. Kwan said, is "Making
>Pancakes on Sunday: The Male Cook in Family Tradition," published in
>1983 by Thomas Adler.
>
>"The ability to cook well is impressive and gets you enormous
>kudos," said Brian Loube, 37, a new-media producer in Manhattan who
>has always cooked for his girlfriends. That praise, he added, "is
>certainly a big reason to do it."
>
>Women are well aware of that rationale, and act accordingly.
>
>"I do the baking, shopping and chopping," said Sheri Warshaw of
>Westport, Conn., whose husband, Jeffrey, regularly cooks meals for
>her and their children. "But Jeffrey is the star of the kitchen."
>
>Indeed, many women who have found their husbands or boyfriends
>increasingly in the kitchen say that the key to keeping them there
>is never to steal the limelight.
>
>"I'm lucky enough to have a husband who cooks for me, and I'm
>nothing but proud of his talents," Mrs. Warshaw said. "Often,
>Jeffrey will stay home and cook while I go to the beach with the
>kids."
>
>At a time when a woman's sense of self doesn't rise and fall
>depending on whether her soufflé does, these lucky recipients of
>man-made food are finding that leaving their egos at the office
>comes naturally. In fact, for some women, not knowing how to cook
>has become a kind of badge of feminist honor.
>
>"I'm proud of the fact that I don't cook and that my husband does,"
>said Lisa Young, 32, an art historian who lives in Brooklyn. Ms.
>Small, the lawyer, agreed. "We both get a kick out of telling new
>acquaintances that I've cooked two meals for him in 20 years," she
>said of her husband. "I always get the `You go, girl!' kudos."
>
>Christina Maguire, 39, has happily handed over the primary food- and
>care-giving roles in her family to her husband, Bill, who works from
>their home in Ipswich, Mass. "I'm among the few whose husband cooks
>not just as a hobby," said Mrs. Maguire, who commutes for her job in
>finance to Boston five days a week. "There is status to it, sure,"
>she added, "but from my point of view certainly no guilt."
>
>The mere act of kitchen role reversal alone, however, doesn't
>determine status for a woman, said Ms. Kwan.
>
>"That he makes spaghetti and meatballs is really nothing to brag
>about," she argued. "I think that men who cook are a status symbol
>for women only if the men are able to make risotto, find a way to
>use cardamom, or incorporate artichokes into a recipe."
>
>On those grounds, though, even Ms. Kwan would allow that Ms. Small's
>husband, Charlie Dorego, qualifies with high grades. A common
>weekday menu prepared by Mr. Dorego, a real estate lawyer in
>Manhattan, might include sea bass fillets artfully swaddled in
>paper-thin potato slices and flash-fried in hot oil.
>
>"The potato protects the fillet while creating a nice crispy layer,
>and you get the benefit of a quick fry without burning your fish,"
>said Mr. Dorego, 48, who then finishes the bundles off in the oven
>while perfecting a Barolo wine reduction on the side.
>
>"If I'm the envy of my friends in any way, it's not because I've
>successfully avoided cooking," Ms. Small said. "We would just rely
>more heavily on takeout if neither of us enjoyed cooking. It's
>because Charlie makes such nice food for me."
>
>There's that artful praise again, which seems to be keeping some men
>in the kitchen as surely as tradition used to bind women to the
>stove.
>
>"Cooking is theater ‹ I'd be lying if I didn't admit that," Mr.
>Dorego said. "You love the applause when you see people smiling
>after taking a bite."
>
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