Men Are Better Cooks

Men are better cooks, they say. I have to agree they are better cooks, but women are better managers. Men can cook only if all the ingredients prescribed in the recipe are available in the right quantity. They can also cook only special dishes. They are not interested in cooking a routine dish. Ask any great cook, if he cooks for his family. He'll likely say, I like my wife's cooking best. It is because he can cook only special dishes with special ingredients. At the end of the day, when he feels like having some plain rasam and rice or vattalkuzhumbu and pappadam, he likes his wife to cook it for him. Men also cannot think of tomorrow when they are cooking today.

My husband can make some great dishes and my children enjoy it best when their dad makes it. I must admit I also enjoy it more than my own cooking. As I said, all ingredients must be available in plenty. He makes the best uppuma. Once he finishes his uppuma making there will be no ghee left in the jar. No low fat cooking for him. If the recipe calls for for 4 tbsps., ghee, he will have no problem adding 4 tbsp. If I were making the same recipe, I try to see if I could make it with 2 tbsp.

Similarly, when my sister-in-law is away, the children love the potato fry their dad makes. My niece says nobody makes potato fry as good as her dad makes. Only at the end of 1 week, he would have used up all the oil meant for one month.

Men can cook only if all vegetables prescribed for in the recipe is available. If the recipe calls for 4 different types of vegetables, they won't know how to make it if only three of them are available, whereas, women would make the recipe even if only 2 of them were available. Once, my friend had come home to teach me a special dish which called for refined flour. I did not have any refined flour and there was no time to go shopping at that hour. I suggested that we substitute it with whole wheat flour. She was quite apprehensive, but had to make do with whole wheat flour as there was no other go. She was very happy with the end result and to this day tells me that, she would not have thought of substituting with wheat flour. Though many recipes say, "do not substitute," I always substitute the ingredients, if I don't have the right one and they have always turned out very delicious. This is true for traditional cooking as well as modern day cooking. I often substitute, butter for ghee, brown sugar for sugar or vice versa, curds for tomato puree and so on. So the next time, you don't have one of the ingredients called for in a recipe, don't panic, try to substitute, you will come up with a new dish. HAPPY COOKING!