Pampered Men Only! Now what do we do..?

 

I have a men only pampered chef cooking show booked.  Apparently, there's a fair bit of interest.

This is the kind of statement that sends ripples of approval through female pampered cheffers. Mainly because grabbing the attention of chaps is tricky and that's mainly it would appear, because of how direct selling has operated for so many years.  Which is why my first foray into these waters is in a bar. 'A bar..? Hmmmm, hardly inconvenient, hey...?

Well, the thinking was, it was a neutral zone - a place where chaps would feel broadly comfortable.  It so happens that the male bar owner is into cooking and kitchen hardware, and is quite looking forward to it.  

As I've mentioned  elsewhere on here, men are increasingly happy to make the kitchen their own.  And for many young men - even boys - cooking is a natural process.  Some of you listened to a recording I made with chef-turned-teacher Anne a couple of weeks ago.  She told us that up to two thirds of her GCSE food technology classes were boys.  Boys! That's a fundamental shift compared with when I was their age. The powers-that-be at that time simply made assumtions that cooking was womens work. 

TV is awash with male celebrity chefs and yet blokes gathering for a cooking show, in a house, still feels unusual. It's getting silly, we have to do something about the image - at the last show I did, every woman there admitted it was her husband/partner that did the day-to-day cooking.

My immediate problem now is...what shall we cook at the show?  Pizza was one suggestion, 'cos blokes like pizza, burgers another etc etc.  

Tricky one this. Sterotypes abound. I'm a bloke and everything, and yet I too am a little hazy on the way to go. There'll be a recorded interview with the bar owner sometime next week on his views on all this.  By the way...I did hear today that some women fancy popping along too.  Presumably they want a pizza the action. You see what I did there?  Pizza the action? Sorry, I'm just starting to panic a tad, that's all.