What a Woman!

It has come to my attention that there exists in the world a cookbook called ‘How to Feed your Man’. No, this is not one of those faux retro pamphlets on ‘How to be a Perfect Wife’, nor is it a 50s Oxo cube advert cunningly reproduced as a fridge magnet. It’s a real, actual book, published in 2010 by a woman who has chosen to call herself ‘Stasha Butterfly’. Which is the kind of name usually reserved for 6 year olds making themselves the centre of attention at family parties or, you know, adult entertainment artistes.

I couldn’t bring myself to part with £15 for this execrable creation, but luckily there are several reviews, a website and some lovely pictures of the recipes themselves on the internet.

Firstly, the whole concept is just monstrous. Yes, cook for your partner- it’s fun, it’s convivial, you learn stuff, and you probably won’t have to do the washing up.  Of course, if your partner has no interest in cooking, you may find yourself doing the lion’s share by default. Equally though, if you have no interest in cooking, fair enough; they might cook for you. Live and let live. You can always get a take away.

The below, on the subject of making extra pasta sauce and freezing it, made me particularly irate:

“you never know when your fella might just cancel the party and want a quiet night in … this way you can be the perfect woman, and say: 'No problem darling, I'll just rustle something up'."

What. The. F**k. Yes, obviously, freeze your sauces, but do it because it makes economic sense, not because it may at some point in the future give you the opportunity to behave like some kind of demented Iceland chiller cabinet with breasts.

The idea that to keep your partner interested you have to be in the kitchen serving them ‘man food’ disgusts me.  In fact, on occasions when I have thrown down the culinary gauntlet and cooked something fantastic for a man in order to um…whet their appetite (sorry), I have ended up so full and sleepy that it’s difficult to summon up the energy to see them to the door.  Admittedly, that may say more about me than Ms. Butterfly.

The recipes in the book itself….well. Let’s just say this, I wouldn’t be surprised if the full title was ‘How to Feed a Man so that he Dies of a Heart Attack at 45 and you get His Money’. It’s all fat and stodge (see my earlier comment about falling asleep after romantic meals). However, Stasha’s man does seem to appreciate this. At a dinner party where she served something masculine to lots of masculine men (whatever), he was seen to:

..“walk around with an ear-to-ear grin muttering the words 'What a woman!’”

I just hate him.

Last but not least, the recipes are just…not recipes. Have a look at this musing on TOAST (so simple, even a man could probably work it out):

"It's just a matter of copious amounts of white bread into a toaster buttered to the edges".

But what do you butter? The toaster? The bread, pre-toasting? It isn’t clear, and if you ask me this is just a recipe for an electrical fire.

Yours,

Disgruntled from Tunbridge Wells.

ps. don’t worry, they appear to have changed the cover for the published edition…

You should see a gynae about that yeast infection dear