Date a Guy Who Cooks

I've been stumbling upon a lot of blog posts in the line of "Date a Girl/Guy Who...." lately. My absolute favourite is Date a Girl Who Travels. Though there are a lot of types out there already- travelers, dancers, readers, nerds, science junkies- I think it would be nice to date someone who cooks. I read a lot of Nicholas Sparks and Meg Cabot as a teenager and often swooned over the cute-butt lawyer or the muscular vet (who also surfed) conjuring a shrimp scampi or chocolate tart for the totally gorgeous, but also totally modest about it, heroine of the book. Imagining a guy take over a completely alien space (alien by stereotype) called the "kitchen" and move about chopping, washing, straining, whipping, boiling, baking or sauteing with a kitchen towel thrown over the shoulder was the best fantasy after Harry Potter. And why shouldn't it be? How many times can a girl sit on the kitchen counter with a glass of mulled wine in hand and just watch a beautiful dinner (with dessert after) materialize without having to do anything? Throw in some Tango music and it's a carnival of colours, flavour, aroma and romance.

Wouldn't you rather go to his place in the evening with a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers than be greeted at your doorstep with flowers and be picked up for dinner at a place that offers not half of the intimacy? Just the invitation, "Why don't you come over Friday night? I'll cook," can make the butterflies flutter. A guy who cooks is full of surprises. Delicious surprises. The possibilities are endless. He could offer you a candle-light dinner in his living room or an open-air dinner on his balcony or a picnic in the park with freshly-baked bread, oysters, cheese, wine (or champagne) and a juicy, gooey apple pie. He could also call you over to his place Sunday morning with a strictly pajamas dress code and treat you to hot breakfast right there at his kitchen counter. Pancakes with maple syrup. He's a keeper! 

Dating a guy who cooks can open endless prospects for you to explore your romance, right from cooking together to fixing the goof-up in the wok. Call your friends over for a Sunday lunch now that you don't have to toil in the kitchen alone anymore and spend the afternoon bragging about his culinary skills and playing monopoly. It's sure to make the girls jealous and the guys, well, pat his back. He doesn't have to be a professional, though. Let him make mistakes and you can wince on the first bite together. Browse through his collection of cookbooks or recipe print-outs and polish your own cooking skills. Make a video of him cooking and put it up on Youtube or share it with your friends and family against his protests. Take him out to a Japanese Food Festival and indulge in a gastronomical delight. He is sure to try and make sushi for you at home the following weekend and now is the time for you to gift him the fine, slicing knife (and a first aid kit.)

The best gift you can get him is an old cookbook bought from a used-book stall at College Street or Fort wrapped in a brown paper. A Moroccan earthen steam pot can make him jump right out of his shoes, too. Or gift him a Food Guide of his favourite city. He is a guy who has Vienna's raspberry-cheese chocolate stores, Naples's hard-to-get-a-table traditional pizzeria, the street food stalls serving chirashi at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, and eateries serving Pilav in Istanbul on his wish list. He is a guy who'll make a mint-raita to go with the biryani you made. He will write a blog about the best Dhansak in town and throw in a short recipe at the end. He will meet your parents for lunch and end up helping your Mum with the kheer in their kitchen. But all of these don't mean there's no macho factor in this guy. Remember what a struggle it was to grate an entire coconut for the prawn curry you made on your grandma's birthday? He does it so fast and perfectly, it looks almost breezy. And while he's cooking, don't be surprised if the canned tuna reminds him of that crazy camping trip somewhere in the Leh Valley when he had to survive on canned food for three days because he was stuck in his tent owing to bad weather.

When you do find this fantasy-guy for real, keep him. If you are a foodie, he's your soul mate. There might be times when he slices his finger while chopping the tomatoes or scalds his hand with a pot of boiling soup. Take that chance to dress the cut or wash the burn. It doesn't get any more intimate than that.