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Matt De Groot: The art of cooking

He's not just Fitzy and Wippa's newsreader or a panelist for The Morning Show, FOX Sports, and the ABC – Matt de Groot is also Be's newest columnist. He'll be taking us on a deep dive into the world of dating and relationships... from a guy's perspective.

There are two types of men in the world: Those who relish cooking for another person, and those who fear it.

I fall into the second category.

Perhaps it’s a failing of my parents, perhaps it is a failing of myself, perhaps it’s a sub-conscious reaction to the amount of cooking shows on TV, I don’t know - but the thought of cooking a meal to impress someone makes me feel nervous, and makes me feel vulnerable.

It’s just not my bit.

So, imagine my distress when my other half asked me to cook ‘something special’ for us during the week.
She knows full well my limitations in this area, yet persisted with her request.

I think she saw it as ‘fun.’

The thing is, as humans we get to a certain age where some skills as simply deemed too difficult to acquire - like learning guitar, or how to change a faucet in a sink, or what a faucet is - and we accept that our skill set is what it is.

It’s usually only those with new years’ resolutions to fulfill – or adults going through a mid-life crisis – who start learning new things just for the sake of it.

But here’s the problem for me: People don’t expect you to be able to play guitar, they’ll forgive you for not knowing how to change a tire (although its handy), but they do expect you to be able to cook.

The regularly used bargaining chip from us non-chefs, is that if you cook – we’ll clean everything up afterward.
To me, that’s always felt like a fair trade-off, because people hate cleaning, so how lucky are they that they get to do all the fun stuff, without any of the mess? But in this instance, it was no dice: I was going to be cooking.

Shit.

Now, in the event of emergency, men who fear cooking will always turn to their nearest Jamie Oliver cook book for inspiration, seeking the perfect combination of an achievable, presentable, and yet fancy-enough meal that clearly shows ‘we tried.’

The myths here are that a) they never end up looking like the book, and b) there are so many spices, sauces, oils and basics that Jamie presumes I already own, that it’s never only the five bloody ingredients he claims it to be.

It’s a shopping trip for the main five ingredients, and then the 13 other flavours, spices and garbage that I need as well.

Now it’s an 18-part fiesta, and I am already flipping my mind.

I opted for a fancy version of meat and three veg, with a hand-made gravy that filled the aforementioned criteria and I set about bringing it all together.

Here’s the next problem: For a reason I will never know, there is an ‘assumed’ level of knowledge that people are expected to bring to the kitchen. I don’t have it.

While crafting my handmade gravy, it called for ‘a cup-and-a-half of beef stock powder’ and so into the frypan went ‘a-cup-and-a-half-of-beef-stock-powder.’

I added the rest of the ingredients, and stirred.

What was created could best be described as a black, salty, tar-like goo.

I checked the ingredients; I had done it all to a tee.

I checked my pan; a salty, tar-like goo.

This went around and around until such time as I decided that THIS is simply what this particular gravy should look like, and so poured the thickened slop onto the steak, and proudly presented my special date night meal.
It was not well received.

APPARENTLY ‘a cup-and-a-half of beef stock powder’ actually refers to some kind of scientific powder:water formula that ‘everyone knows,’ and I should NOT have poured the entire container of beef stock powder onto the hot fry pan.

WHY WOULD I KNOW THIS?!



Defiantly, I ate my now ruined piece of meat still covered in my ‘gravy’, all the while becoming more salt-dehydrated than the Sahara.

I was proud of what I had done, even if its execution was amiss.

This was not mutual.

My point is this: Date nights can be stressful enough without demanding your guy step into the kitchen and create something if he’s not shown any savvy or interest in this area before.

Let him order the best take-away in the world, or be your very carefully-monitored sous chef and then let him clean-up like no man has ever cleaned-up before…

He’ll appreciate it, you’ll appreciate it, and no one will to pretend they are enjoying their hand-crafted road-tar on a $65 cut of steak.

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