To show your lady love how just how much you care, get her fresh flowers, pour her a glass of wine, and serve her Miso Horny Cod. So says Spencer Walker, author of “Cook To Bang: The Lay Cook’s Guide to Getting Laid” (St. Martin’s Press).
Eye-on-the prize cooking is nothing new as his helpful chapter “Cooking to Bang Through History” points out. And it goes both ways. Glamour Magazine’s Engagement Chicken is a roast chicken recipe that an editorial assistant made for her boyfriend that resulted him in popping the question. Another assistant tried it and wham-o!, Her guy put a ring on it, too. Walker’s take, Roasted Chicken Rubdown, is similarly goal-oriented. Just with a different goal.
In terms of maturity, insight and sensitivity, “Cook To Bang” reads as if the guys from 40-Year-Old Virgin wrote it minus the sad, bag-of-sand guy. It’s part cookbook, part seduction manual with advice on food pairings, cocktails, music and aphrodisiacs. The “Sexual Profiling” chapter identifies and illustrates female archetypes, i.e., “Hippie Harlots,” “Holy Hotties” and “Sororiteases,” providing recipes customized to appeal to each type. “A hipster you find at an Indie rock show will have vastly different tastes than a redneck you meet at church,” Walker writes.
Some critics find the book anti-women and anti-feminist, but – writing from the point of view of a woman - it’s no more anti-women than most female-oriented magazines are anti-men. Walker writes of women in the same language and tone that they often write of his gender. “Cook To Bang” is a primer that tells guys that the best, and perhaps only way for them to get a girl who is clearly out of their league is to cook for her. As it turns out, the recipes are simple, clear and actually good.
“Cooking becomes wooing out of necessity,” Walker says, when you can’t afford four-star restaurants and don’t look like Brad Pitt. This book levels the playing field. “I wrote it for the poorer, younger version of myself,” explains Walker who accurately describes himself as, “not a troll, not an Adonis, average, with a good personality.”
The screenwriter’s strike of ’07 and ’08 sidelined Walker’s children’s television career —he helped discover the popular Nickelodeon show, Ni Hao, Kai-lan. Like many of his colleagues, he found himself with no job, no income and, soon, no girlfriend. He created the Cook To Bang blog (500 recipes and counting) as a creative and culinary outlet. “I was pigeon-holed as a kids’ writer. People didn’t see me as anything else. I had always liked to cook,” he says. “And I really liked girls.
Walker loves girls as much as he loves food. He’s worked as a private chef and a caterer. His recipes reflect stints in Moroccan, Italian, French and Asian restaurant kitchens. Dishes like Stroke My Bananas Foster and Bust-a-Nut Squash Soup combine his love for cooking and his lust for women. Guys always want to score, says Walker. Cooking is simply the best way to do it as, “Women are always impressed with a guy that cooks.” At the very least, he says, they’ll remember you.
Walker says that a few basics will avert disaster:
Know your date’s preferences. Don’t serve steak tartar to a vegan, and ask about allergies. An ER visit to rid her of hives is a guaranteed buzz-kill.
Get comfortable with few go-to dishes so you’re relaxed. You’ll reek of desperation if you look like you’re working too hard.
Remember: Beer goes with Chinese food, wine does not. Ever.
Eat light: Pasta and meat can make your date feel bloated and gassy, which means “no sexy time.”
Stick with salads and fish. “Aphrodisiacs create nymphomaniacs,” he says. Aphrodisiacs are always high in vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants and include avocados, chiles, ginger, rosemary, honey, cheese, chocolate, figs, oysters, pine nuts, strawberries and watermelons.
Walker practices what he preaches. He once made his cod for a girl who “was so far out of league that I had no business even thinking of her.” After her first bite, “she grabbed me and kissed me,” he swears. They dated for four months.
It works for non-cooks too, if you believe this endorsement from Andrew in Charlotte, NC on the back cover: “My game was so bad my friends thought I was gay. Girls always thought of me as the guy friend they could say anything to except, ‘I want to ride you like a pony.’”
Juvenile, but effective. Get Cook To Bang and saddle up.
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