Romance for Real Women

The connection between romance, real women and man-pleasing recipes is an old and acknowledged one.

With that in mind, I was browsing through my collection of cookbooks to pinpoint dishes that have what we can call “man appeal.” But, while I reviewing my old favorites, I thought rather than just providing a list of recipes, I’d develop a tips list. After all learning how to identify the successful man-pleasing recipe is the crucial first step to cooking them. So here is my list of “How to identify recipes than will please your man.”

Now, a word on sources. Do you remember that fabulous “White Trash Cooking” book by Ernest Matthew Mickler? It had recipes like “Rainbow Salad” where you chop the iceberg lettuce and then add tomato. After my friends stopped laughing, a number of them, especially the men, admitted they’d grown up on these recipes and loved them.

A few years ago, my partner found “A Treasury of Top Secret Recipes, the Complete Guide to re-creating American’s bestselling Brand-name Foods and Restaurant Recipes in Your Own Home.” He wrapped it up and gave it to me. Now, there was a clue.

Any Texas cookbook is a good source of man pleasing recipes because people in Texas eat beef. A little pork and chicken, yes. But mostly beef.

You do see where I going, don’t you?

Okay, let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Tip One: Recipes that begin with “six cups of vegetable oil for frying” have the highest possible chance of pleasing your man. Real men love fried food. Earmark these recipes and return to them later.

Tip Two: Avoid recipes that begin with “three cups of sugar.” These are for you and your friends. Make them when he’s not at home. Real men do not care for an overabundance of sugar in their food. Earmark them for girls night out parties and such.

Tip Three: Let your eye wander down the list of ingredients called for in the recipe. If there are more than four for a week night dinner and more than six for a fancy meal, do not earmark. The exception is if the recipe lists “oil for frying” as an ingredient. And, I shouldn’t have to tell you that salt and pepper don’t count either.

Tip Four: Identify only those recipes that call for meat. Real men do not like fish. The exception to this rule is fried fish, which real men adore.

Tip Five: Be highly critical of amounts called for in potentially man-pleasing recipes. For example, if the recipe is “Steak for Two” or “Burgers for Two,” triple it.

Tip Six: Real men love casseroles. King Ranch Casserole calls for seven ingredients, an exception to the six ingredient rule. Casseroles with plenty of cheese and mushroom soup always have a high man-pleasing potential.

Tip Seven: Do not go hog wild on preparing appetizers for your man-pleasing meal. Real men eat appetizers and to them, the hardier, the better. The problem is that once they’ve eaten them, they aren’t quite as hungry for the meal you’ve so carefully prepared. Imagine his annoyance if after having eaten the Baby Backs before dinner, he is unable to finish his chicken friend chicken steak. Don’t chance this, dears. Give him a little bowl of Planters if dinner isn’t quite ready when he arrives.

Tip Eight: Do not anticipate high levels of postprandial activity. This isn’t a case of “I do for you, now you do me.” If he’s finished what you’ve given him, his heart won’t be in it. I guarantee it. Let him relax and watch the game…at least for a little while.

Tip Nine: Use some judgment. If your guy is young and healthy, chances are he’s not going to have a coronary. In other cases, if might be a good idea to keep the bottle of low dose Bayer aspirin close by. There’s no need to mention this to him. You’ll know you’re watching out for him.

Enjoy.

A friend and self-proclaimed real woman came over last night to vent about her partner’s inadequacies.

Normally, I automatically side with a woman. Women tend to understand each other. But this time, I confess, I just couldn’t see it. All her complaints focused on the minor, practical details of living together. He’d failed to take out the garbage, although it was his job. He’d failed to wash the dishes although it was his turn. He’d failed to put the toilet seat up, although she’d repeatedly insisted he remember to do it.

After listening to her for a couple of hours and drinking at least three glasses of wine, I began to realize something about my friend. She’s is the kind of woman who will never be pleased; who will never allow herself to be happy. And, if she finds someone who loves her, she’ll hammer at it until it’s gone.

Another friend did exactly that. She married a young, ambitious guy and she wanted everything he could give her: a big house, jewelry, an ample credit line and big cars. To get them for her, he had to work and work hard. As he began to move up the ranks in the big electronics company he worked for, he began to travel extensively to Asia and Europe.

That was the trade off. No travel, no big house, no credit cards, no jewelry.

But she wouldn’t uphold her end of the bargain. Every time he came home, she bitched and bitched and bitched. He didn’t take out the garbage. She had to deal with the kids alone (never mind that she had plenty of help). He wouldn’t do this; he wouldn’t do that. Her complaints were endless and so very, very minor.

He offered to move the family to Asia to reduce their time apart. But, she wasn’t having any of that. No sir. She had the big house in the suburbs and that’s where she was staying.

Finally, he started coming home less and less. She started spending more and more and at last exceeded their very comfortable means. When he took control of the finances, she hired a divorce lawyer as a tactic. He was served. And, he agreed to the divorce. She was stunned and devastated.

Last night, I told my friend this story. I’m not sure she understood my point, although she did sense some criticism where she thought she’d get unconditional support. But I know her guy. I know he’s a sweet, hardworking fellow who’d do anything for her, although I guess he did forget to take out the garbage and put down the toilet seat.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m as willing as the next person to go to the mat on important issues. Forgetting to pick up the kids, for example. Now that, I’ll tussle about. But this stuff, no.

I suspect this relationship is going to fail soon. I also suspect my friend is going to be devastated. She’s never going to see it coming.

Okay, I did it. I watched Swingtown. I not only watched it, I watched it with Mom, an authority on all things having to do with the sixties and seventies.

The plot is paper thin. A young couple moves to a more expensive neighborhood and is introduced to swinging by neighbors. Friends from the old neighborhood visit and are as horrified by the couple swapping as the first couple is, dare I say, seduced.

From the perspective of a viewer, the show didn’t work on any level. Viewers with a prurient interest in swinging are bound to be disappointed. The network only hints at the sex. It never shows any. Anyone interested in why swinging appeared to erupt mini-phenomenon in the seventies is also going to be disappointed. The network doesn’t offer a single clue into what prompted middle class interest in it.

Not surprisingly, Mom had a few ideas. She conceded that the network did get a few things right. Some men did wear high waisted polyester pants, she said, although she didn’t know any. Disco enjoyed a brief popularity and Mom says it was kind of fun, but nothing anyone reared on Dylan, The Band or Eric Clapton took seriously as “real” music.

She started to leave then. Like Forrest Gump, this appeared to be all she had to say about that.

I wouldn’t let her. I made some English tea and insisted she tell me why. Why did obviously middle class people, people with responsible jobs and children get into swinging? What was in it for them?

She looked at me like I’m an idiot.

“Oh, Bunny,” she said. “Don’t you get it?”

“No,” I said with some irritation. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“But it’s obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“Well, dear,” she finally said. “People like this, suburban types, slept all the way through the sixties. Think of what went on. Civil rights. The war. Women’s rights. Social justice. A lot of hard work went into the movement. These were issues that changed society and changed our perceptions of government, relationships, work, and most of all ourselves and what we wanted from life. Sex was only a part of it.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking I was about to get another lecture on the righteousness of the sixties. “So what?”

“They didn’t participate. Do you honestly think a guy in polyester slacks has a thought on women’s rights?” (Mom’s something of a snob, but I was beginning to understand her.)

“So when they woke up in the seventies, they found everything had changed. And, they realized they’d missed out. They felt they were owed something. Why I don’t know, since they choose to opt out and, remember, Bunny, there was still plenty of work to do in the 1970s. Still is, for that matter.”

“Okay,” I agreed. I didn’t want to get into a discussion of the environment. Mom despises what she calls my “Goldwater” tendencies.

Again, she started to leave. Again, I stopped her. “So, that’s it?” I asked. “That’s all there is to it?”

“Yes, dear. That’s all there is to it. People like this were selfish in the sixties and selfish in the seventies. Really, dear, they’re dead bores. I don’t understand why you’re so interested.” Then, she did leave.

I thought about what she’d said and have to admit.

She’s got a point.

CBS is set to air a new series tonight called Swingtown, a “drama with comic elements” about three Midwest couples “wading into the rising waters of the sexual revolution sweeping the nation during the mid-seventies.”

Well, not to challenge the network’s grasp of social history, but the sexual revolution swept the country in the middle sixties. The pill which liberated women from the fear of unwanted pregnancy became available in the United States in 1960. Three years later, some 1.2 million were using it to prevent pregnancy.

The availability of the pill was a crucial influence in creating the sexual revolution, but so, too, was the confluence of several other important events. Betty Friedan spoke to millions of women in The Feminine Mystique,” an examination of the hollowness of the post-war roles prescribed for women. A string of assassinations, JFK, RFK and MLK, rocked the nation before Vietnam tore it apart. By the mid-70s, Nixon was gone, the war was over, and so, too, was the sexual “revolution,” although clearly sexual mores had changed forever.

Those of you who have read any of this blog know that my mother was a charter member of the sixties generation. Some of you might even remember it was called the “free love” generation, a term she’s always detested. So when I noticed that Swingtown was set to air, I asked her about it. Swinging, that is.

“Bunny,” she said, “none of us ever thought about swinging. It’s so cold, so clinical. If we wanted to make love, we did. We still do.” (Author’s note: Mom insisted I include that part of her quote. Author’s second note: Yes, she calls me ‘Bunny.”) “But I certainly never went to any party to swap partners,” she concluded.

She actually didn’t conclude. Mom said a lot more on the subject of free love in the sixties, her own in particular, which I firmly declined to quote and would frankly rather not know. Nevertheless her point is a good one. Physical love freely given and received between consenting adults outside a committed relationship is fine. Not for me. But fine.

But parties…with tubs of whip cream, bowls of cherries and cheap wine…communal romps in dirty sheets…crowding against naked strangers in a hot tub? CBS may see the potential for “drama with comic elements.” I see heartache.

Which brings me to my own experience. I’ve known couples who were swingers. They confused Mom’s philosophy of free love, a young, exuberant pushing of the envelope, with the sterile coupling of strangers in a futile effort to recapture youth or grasp at empty pleasure.

To a person, all the couples I’ve known who tried swinging, broke up. Their relationships fractured under the weight. Not surprising, but pitiful.

I haven’t seen Swingtown yet and I’m not sure I will. I’ve seen what it can do to decent people and the danger is far greater than the risk of STD or HIV, something Mom’s generation never worried about.

If you’re tempted, think very carefully. Then, my advice is: Take a pass.

If you’re a man, getting a date can be hard. If you read some of the relationship gurus who are popping up by the dozens on the web, getting a date can be harder than say, storming the beaches at Normandy or getting the kids to sleep at bedtime. But, if it wasn’t hard, then relationship gurus would have nothing to sell.

Real women know men need to be careful what they buy. A case in point is a fellow who runs a website called “Alpha Unleashed, the official new alpha resource for success in life and in love.”
Michael “Bishop” Emery, who owns the blog, recently posted an entry asserting that women “test” men before giving out a phone number or accepting a date.

This is true. Real women certainly don’t give their telephone numbers to anyone who asks. We look a guy over. There are obvious factual issues to consider. Is he married? We look for the “tell,” say, the tan line on his ring finger. Divorced? How many times? Does he seem to care about his children? (This would be indicated by knowing their gender, their ages, even where they go to school.) Does he support himself? What kind of work does he do?

Then there is instinct. Can he put together a simple sentence? Can he look you in the eye? If you’re in a public place, is he caging money from his buddies? Does he need a bath? Do they all? Women note these things instinctively and insofar as you might want to suggest these are “tests,” you’d be right.

But women don’t run the kind of tests Emery suggests. He’d want his followers to believe that women formulate specific questions for men and then want men to ignore them. By ignoring them, Emery says, men assert their power, power women find irresistible. This is the insight he’s selling.

Here is a direct excerpt from his Thursday, May 29 blog entitled “How Women Test Men – How to Pass”

So, the next time you’re standing in front of a beautiful women who you’ve just asked for her number and she says, “why don’t you just give me your number and I’ll call YOU…” try CHUCKLING out loud and saying:

Then hand her a pen, point to the paper, and look her in the eye expectantly.

Once I got over the bends, I doubled checked the column to be sure he is completely serious. I then had an insight of my own. I realized that this isn’t just half-way funny bad advice. It is, in fact, dangerously aggressive stuff.

I wonder what he’d suggest if the woman in question persisted in declining to give out her number. I hesitate to think.

If you’re confronted with the kind of situation Emery proposes, don’t stop to ask if the guy is a fan or has bought “Fire of Seduction,” the book he’s is peddling. This is not the time to chat. Run away. Quickly. Quickly.

Real women, like some politicians, don’t wear their patriotism on their lapels and I don’t. Nevertheless, I am invariably irritated when I read condescending and spiteful remarks, however elegantly phrased, about our country.

Such was the case yesterday when I picked up a copy of The Financial Times, a British publication our office subscribes to and read Nigel Andrews’ review of Sex in the City.

The writer first confesses that he’s never seen an episode of the popular television show. He goes on to say “I offer no excuse, beyond my instinctive aversion to shows in which Americans pretend they are or can be sexually liberated. They are always hopeless at it – the Puritan ancestry tells – and so the results are always screamy, garish and winsome.”

Yeah. That got my attention, too.

After offering that insight, he goes on to say of the movie. “They walk, talk, giggle, gesticulate and sometimes fling themselves across a room, leaving their owners suddenly pink, startled and exposed. This is in preparation for what passes in America for a sex scene.”

One can only imagine Mr. Andrews’ delight in himself in penning such a riposte.

But by then I knew, I just knew, where this was headed. Can you guess?

“Here is my theory: the French alone understand eroticism, so they alone should be allowed to depict sex on screen.”

Yep. We got there. The French.

Many real women will remember back in 2000 when the national discussion centered on President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski. Anyone who offered the slightest hint of criticism or showed any distaste for Clinton’s performance, was told “the French think we’re prudes.” Commentators pointed with pride to French Prime Minister Mitterand’s funeral to which both his wife and mistress attended. That cinched the argument, all right. If you didn’t consider that the height of sophistication you were obviously a prude, bore and barbarian. (At the time I couldn’t understand why anyone cared what the French thought. I still don’t.)

OK, I’m not going list some of the sexiest movies scenes in history played by American actors, written by American scriptwriters and produced by American studios. I don’t have time, although perhaps I will in another post.

I’m not even going to defend Sex in the City because I haven’t seen it yet.

But I’m going to. This weekend. First thing tomorrow. Nigel Andrews has made me realize it’s my patriotic duty.

In the dog days of this never ending campaign season, real women will be delighted with this little snippet of campaign candy.

Yesterday, The New York Times ran a long profile on the aptly named Reggie Love, Barack Obama’s personal assistant.

Reggie is Barack’s shadow, anticipating his every need which apparently includes ball point pins, Sharpies, stationery, protein bars, throat lozenges, water, tea Advil, Tylenol, Purell and emergency Nicorette. (Yes, ladies, it turns out, Barrack is a smoker. However, we have to assume that Reggie spoke to the Times with his boss’s approval, unlike another recent staffer on the other side of the aisle.)

He’s tall. At 6’5”, he’s three inches taller than Barack. He’s fit. He benchpresses 350 pounds. And, according to the Times, he’s cool, although the newspaper didn’t provide any examples.
He’s also cute. The Times didn’t point this out either although the reporter is clearly in a swoon. Check it out at in the New York Times.

OK. Some real women might consider this carping. But it’s legitimate carping, that is to say, carping with a point of view.

Today, I visited People Magazine’s site for 2007’s Sexiest Men Alive. Apparently, the 2008 list will appear this fall.

I confess I was prompted by nothing more than idle curiosity and a fortuitously timed coffee break. But once there, I went through all the photos and accompanying bios which are laced with quotes from the sexiest men alive.

At first, I was chagrined by the number of sexiest men alive I don’t regard as sexy. Worse, by the number of sexiest men alive I didn’t recognize. I mean, Dave Annable is cute, but am I the only real woman in the universe who doesn’t know who he is? My daughter, who is a real woman in training, might know him, but I don’t.

But after I’d been through the entire list, looking at the gorgeous pictures and reading the scant copy accompanying them, I was struck more by what they said than how they looked.

Will Smith says “Either I’m going to be with [wife] Jada,or I’m going to be dead.” Real women will be interested to know that Will Smith is still proclaiming his love for Jada in an article in this week’s edition of People, a full six months after publication of The Sexiest Men Alive. This is evidently a popular topic for People’s editors.

Shemar Moore who stars on Criminal Minds, a show I like, says of being sexy: “A fresh haircut is so important. I wear my hair so low. Freshly faded. A nice tan in my back yard so I can get that bronze, brown-sugar glow, a vintage pair of jeans and white button down shirt with a couple of buttons open. A chrome chain. Pair of sneakers.”

I’m speechless.

Ben Affleck, who in addition to being one of the sexiest men alive is a writer and should know better, says of his daughter: “All I want to do is go home, just to be around her again.”

Nonsense. Real women and real men love their children, but there are occasions when we have to be dragged home, kicking and screaming. We are not sentimental about changing diapers, giving baths and coaxing unruly children to bed. In fact, Affleck’s quote suggests to me that he doesn’t do it often.

Adrian Greiner, another actor I didn’t recognize, said in response to what was obviously a direct question: “My sexiest night was a night spent with a beautiful woman I loved in a Super 8 motel after a wedding.” he says.

Huh? A Super 8 Motel?

Brad Pitt didn’t comment while Patrick Dempsey says the reason he’s stayed with his wife Jillian for eight years is because of her eyes. “They’re warm, sparkly eyes,” he says.

These guys have access to publicists and script writers. They know newspaper reporters, bloggers and paparazzi. In Affleck’s case, he is a writer. All of them have read movie and television scripts.
Surely, surely, they could have tapped into one of these resources for a quote that would rise above the level of total drivel. It can’t be any harder than say, finding the right chrome chain.

Maybe not. Maybe the best advice for real women is look, but don’t listen.

Health officials in New York are warning members of that state’s more credulous population to refrain from ingesting toad venom marketed as an aphrodisiac.

Real women, of course, understand that eating toad venom isn’t such a good idea even if it’s packaged as “Love Stone.”

But aphrodisiacs have been around for centuries. The Chinese used to grind up pearls and ingest them as an aphrodisiac. In some parts of China, they still use pearl dust for medicinal purposes. Cleopatra, who knew a thing or two about seduction, dissolved a pearl worth 100,000 sesterces in vinegar and drank it after betting Marc Antony she could host the most expensive banquet in history. This, however, may have been more about conspicuous consumption than seduction.

In my own day, people used to suggest that oysters on the half shell were aphrodisiacs. That, and powdered rhino horn.

Viagra, of course, isn’t strictly an aphrodisiac. For it to work, the man must first be sexually stimulated.

I love oysters and good chocolate (also often cited as an aphrodisiac). However, neither has ever made me wiggle in my seat.

What does, however, are the following:

A man who gives some thought to a night out. A restaurant I’m fond of. A movie I’ve indicated I’d like to see, especially one based on a Jane Austin book which I know can be actually painful for men although I don’t understand why.

When I was younger, an offer to babysit the kids would send me scrambling out of my pjs. Now that I’m a little older, the gift of sexy lingerie hits my hot button.

Men who remove their own plates from the dinner table have it all over the blister beetle, sometimes called Spanish Fly, an aphrodisiac at least as deadly as toad venom.

And, men who can actually organize a meal without dozens of helpless questions are guaranteed my enlistment in the cause of their penile health.

Real women know these are not small matters. You won’t catch us ingesting toad venom, but we’ll go to home base for guys who measure up this way.

Real women might want to sit up and take notice of a just released University of Texas study on the different “mate values” harbored by men and women. According to the study, it’s a “serious effort to delve into an area that has been largely ignored by scientists.”

“Mate Values.”

That’s a new one.

Boiled down, the study found that beautiful people are attracted to beautiful people; it found that beautiful women want more from a man than a hot bod; and, it found that powerful men tend to have multiple wives and play around.

All kind of jaw dropping, huh?

According to news reports, the authors sent teams of interviewers to rate the attractiveness of women interviewed. Once they were rated, and I for one would love to know what they made of tattoos, like are shoulder tattoos more beautiful than butt tattoos? Did the respondents show them? What about various body piercings? Were they counted?

At any rate, respondents, rated beautiful or ugly, were given a list of “mate value” attributes, sex appeal, good earning capacity, good parenting indicators, education, etc., and asked to prioritize them.

Intelligence was at the bottom of the list.

No kidding. For both “beauties” and “plain Janes.” The researchers described the finding as a “puzzle.”

Who the hell did they ask? UT co-eds?

“Honey, you’re dumb as a post, but you’ve got ‘good partner indicator.’”

Think about it.

All those smart guys out there with poor mate value.

So saddle up, ladies. I, for one, like a guy who’s smart enough to check the mail, empty the dishwater and find a fuse box.

I think the playing field just got leveled.