The Gospel of Guy Food

Last weekend was my wife's birthday, so I wanted to surprise her and make dinner. I thought long and hard about it, and I prepared the perfect menu for the occasion:

• Steak
• Beer
• Cake

Then I had second thoughts. My wife is, after all, a nurse, and she is very much in tune with issues like nutrition and a balanced diet. I revised my menu to include all the essential food groups:

• Steak
• Beer
• Cake
• Hot Sauce

Not necessarily in that order. Oddly enough, when I served the meal, my wife did not seem entirely satisfied. For one thing, she doesn't like beer, and It didn't seem to make her feel better when I offered to help out and drink hers. But I knew it was more serious than that when she screwed her face up into that cute little "I can't believe I married this moron" look and said, "Where are the vegetables?"

"Aha," I said, holding the bottle of hot sauce triumphantly in the air. "Right here!"

"How do you figure?"

"Well, catsup is a vegetable, and this is kind of like catsup. Only hot."

"Since when is catsup is a vegetable?"

"Since the Reagan administration."

Like Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Agriculture, I eventually lost that particular argument.

I really don't understand my wife's ideas about food. She bases her bizarre concepts of diet and nutrition on the advanced diet and nutrition courses she took in nursing school, along with a lot of subsequent reading and study.

I, on the other hand, have developed and refined my culinary knowledge through many years of practical hands-on experience, standing around the yard with a beer in one hand and a barbecue fork in the other. That, and watching beer commercials.

Picture in your mind a typical beer commercial featuring a bunch of young, good looking guys sitting around with a bunch of young, good looking women, enjoying a young, good looking campfire, drinking beer, and toasting their youth and good lookingness.

Now picture what they're eating. I'm thinking steaks, or ribs, or maybe some burgers and brats. It's a pretty safe bet that they are not letting the good times roll with little watercress sandwiches and puree of broccoli.

I have developed a very simple set of eight cooking rules that I live by. I offer it here as a nutritional model for men everywhere.

1.    If it doesn't fall through the grill into the fire, and it's not zucchini, it's good. Just as long as it's not zucchini.

2.    A leaf of lettuce and a slice of tomato on your hamburger counts as a salad. A slice of onion sort of counts.

3.    "Hops" are little green leafy thingies. A lot of green leafy thingies are vegetables. They put hops in beer. Therefore, beer is a vegetable.

4.    Potato chips are vegetables. Don't let anybody tell you any different. Add onion dip with chives, and you have a vegetable medley.

5.    Never make a casserole. Ever. It's ok, maybe even mandatory, to eat the casseroles prepared by your wife, but initiating one without provocation could cost you your Guy License. This is because many casseroles include ingredients that could be grilled (see rule number 1 above). Chopping these up and baking them in a dish with mushroom soup is an abomination of nature.

6.    When it comes to seasoning, if a little bit is good, a lot is better. If it makes you sweat and brings tears to your eyes, it's great.

7.    There is no flavor problem that can not be resolved with Tabasco.

8.    No zucchini.

Copyright © 2007, Michael Ball