Online dating is a great way to meet great women, but ultimately you want to meet women and make a good impression on them and develop great relationships. One way to impress women is to cook for them and although there are arguments against this, I find the results quite positive – when you cook for a woman, you demonstrate your independence and generosity, and since it is usually done in your place it is a great excuse to get her to visit you in your own environment where you can be confident, relaxed and funny – all aspects of your personality that will certainly impress her. This article looks at how men have impressed women with their cooking in the movies (and a few books).
James Bond
Though more noted for dining in the finest restaurants and Gentlemen’s Clubs, along with his taste in cocktails, James Bond has rustled up enough quick meals to bring a smile to the faces of several of the ladies he meets on his adventures.
In A View To A Kill (1985), we see Roger Moore’s Bond putting together a quiche with the limited selection of morsels in Stacey Sutton’s kitchen (although she appears to live in a mansion, she is too busy as a top geologist to get the groceries in). Not only does he sort out a squad of bad guys who try to attack her, he also dispels the popular notion that real men don’t eat quiche.
There are a couple of ironies here: the phrase Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche originated as the title of a 1982 book by Bruce Feirstein, a man who went on to write the scripts of several James Bond movies, and Roger Moore – according to urban myth, anyway – was asked to be a spokesman for the British Quiche Council.
In the novel of the Spy Who Loved Me (1962), Bond offers to cook Bacon and Eggs if the heroine has the necessary ingredients. Eggs are important in the James Bond repertoire, as they should be in any man’s basic cookery arsenal, and in the short story 007 In New York (1963), Bond actually shares his own recipe for scrambled eggs – which he insists should be served on toast, in copper bowls, with pink champagne.
Napoleon Dynamite
Well, not actually Napoleon, but his pal Pedro, who was determined to “Build a Cake” to impress Summer Wheatley, the “popular girl”. This doesn’t go too well, although that might have something to do with Pedro’s mean of cake delivery – he leaves it on the doorstep of her house. An important lesson though is that Pedro is not taken back by this rejection for long and successfully asks Deb to go to the dance with him, possibly to Napoleon’s disappointment. Napoleon should have taken action if he wanted her. In fact, it was this decisive approach that obviously helped Pedro’s bid to become president.
Richard Gere
In the movie Autumn in New York (2000), Richard Gere plays a restaurant owner who seduces Winona Ryder. Obviously his character has a professional advantage, but no doubting the effect that a well – appointed table has on the delightful Winona.
Will Ferrell (Almost)
In the movie Stranger Than Fiction (2006) Will Ferrell appears in a movie about a man who discovers he is a character in a book, just after he has fallen in love with a baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal – a lady that dropped out of Harvard to make the world a better place by baking cookies. Although he doesn’t actually cook for Maggie, he meets her half – way with one of the greatest movie puns when he buys her “some flours”. He at least appreciates the necessary components of her art and wants to help her in her mission!
Richard Gere cooks at his place, Bond cooks at her place, and Will Ferrell helps her cook at her work. The common theme is that a man and woman share a meal because the man made an effort beyond signing for the bill at a restaurant. All the guys were rewarded for their efforts and therein lies a lesson for us all.