Disclaimer:
I’m a man. So I am writing this from the perspective of a dude cooking for a girl because that is what I have done. I’m sure most the principles apply to everyone else.
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Maybe you’re cheap and don’t want to pay for a dinner date, maybe you have raging butterflies and feel like she is the one, maybe you have been married for years and need to get out of the dog house, well, I’ve been all three and wanted to distill some knowledge that helped me, hopefully it will help you.
- Find out what she likes to eat and cook that. This is no time to try that venison tartare recipe you saw Joe Rogan make. If she loves garlic bread, make the damn garlic bread. Nothing will make someone enjoy your cooking more than cooking what they like to eat.
- Bottle of wine. Don’t get flashy with cocktails and hard liquor. A cheap cold white or a bottle of red with a random label from a non mainstream winery will skirt all judgement and you can just set it on the table. BOOM, drinks done. You do not want to be sweating over how much bitters to add to the Old Fashioned or forget you don’t have ice or realize she hates whiskey. Wine is romantic and defensible.
- Whatever you do choose a menu item that keeps you calm and not stressed out looking. This sounds simple but especially in one-on-one settings nobody likes to see someone huffing and puffing and dishes flying everywhere. Braises, comforting soups, easy pastas are your friend, especially on date number one.
- Always ask “do you have any allergies or anything you don’t like?”, it’s polite and this is a chance for people to tell you that they don’t eat gluten or have a secret disdain for pomegranate. Again, the highway to cooking something people won’t like is to use ingredients they don’t like.
- Always serve dessert. Even if it is a pint of ice cream or a store bought chocolate bar, everyone enjoys something sweet. If you can, do something homemade and add it to something store bought, like fresh, maple butter cashews over ice cream.
- If it works, make it again. There is zero shame in making Jamie Oliver’s shrimp and cherry tomato pasta for the 12th time if you enjoy it and they will to. Cooking is a lot like gymnastics and often even the second time you make something it’s 3–4x better. Bonus tip: If you have been together for a long time and in the dog house, make something nostalgic, make a dish you made when you were first dating.
- A quick marketing lesson! Jamie Oliver, Bill Granger, Gordon Ramsay, Chuck Hughes, your favorite dude youtubers ect. are cool but when cooking for women, don’t discredit Giada De Laurentiis, Nadiya Hussain or Nigella they often have little recipe tweaks women love (because the target market of those shows are women). Often women are better at doing instructional videos too and are better teachers. Cruise around behind enemy lines and see what they are cooking. I think Molly Baz is doing incredibly chill and comforting food at the moment.
- Give your guest something to do. Pick the parsley, open the pasta package, cut the _____. Very few people like to sit and do nothing and stare at someone cooking.
- Put music on, drink water and regardless of how in the sh*t you are with prep take a shower at 6pm. Don’t blank on the basics. Some motown, or soul or spotify “{insert country of cuisine} dinner party list”. Nobody likes a dehydrated, sweaty guy unless you’re directing a neo-western with Chris Pine.
- Ok I’m going to get a little sentimental. I’m 37, and some of the best times I have ever had are cooking for my now wife or a summer fling or a date. If you are young now, I promise these are memories you will smile about one day when you have a kid running around and you break out some spaghettini and remember when you made that pesto that one summer and drank garbage chardonnay on your tiny balcony in August.
- Don’t be scared or nervous or embarrassed. People appreciate when people cook for them. Even if you ask that girl you like if they want to roll by for dinner and they say no, there’s a good chance she at least finds it charming.
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Bonus: If a one-on-one dinner is too intense, just tell her to invite a couple friends and you invite a friend and make something simple for a group. Just make sure there is more of them than you and your friends, I don’t know it just works better for some reason. It still kinda feels like a date but is much less pressure.
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Ok, I want to hear it, any tips you would suggest to a young buck or old man? I would LOVE to hear some woman’s insights/tips on this too. -R
PS: If you found this helpful, you may enjoy our cooking school because you’ll learn how to cook for people you care about.
