Croobert News: Pascale Boucicaut: The Way to a Man's Heart Is Not Through His Stomach

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My first attempt to win him over was with a giant vat of homemade ravioli that I kindly offered to feed all his friends. I did it because I was trying to show off and because Sir Thomas Moore once said that "a man taking basil from a woman will love her always." We sat in his back garden and listened to Miles Davis. I was charming, I was generous, I was starving when I left.

In her book The Gastronomical Me, MFK Fisher writes, "It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others." So I have been known to purvey my seasoned kitchen experience to men I wanted to stick around even after dessert. There was the time I turned all of Adam's leftover vegetables into a frittata, or the rosewater cupcakes I had "laying around" when Paul came over to watch a movie. My best was the Saturday afternoon I spent filling my refrigerator with bowls of fresh fruits -- black plums, pluots, figs -- he was a yoga instructor. These little successes left me feeling like a masterful woman, skillfully bewitching all senses of those who enter my home. But this guy wasn't biting.

My friends call him "is-this-a-date guy." Either my charms weren't working or he wasn't interested in anything more than my knife skills, but things weren't progressing at all. One memorable meal we shared was in the springtime -- he paid for the entire thing. We started with a dozen oysters and finished with a bottle of amaro. Over dinner we discussed the wonders of wagyu beef and his admiration for the chef. There was no talk of girlfriends or spring fever. I believe that night ended at a bar and then his departure -- "I've gotta go see a friend who just got back into town." Unable to digest properly, I started thinking, was my free meal an act of kindness or of consolation? Three months later I saw a facebook photo of him sitting in the same spot (the decor is easy to distinguish) with another girl.

My friend Sam asked me why I was putting up with this, and I responded that, frustrating as it always was, I was having some fun. I've had loads of experiences in which the line between love and friendship blurs. Plus I am still mystified by the dating etiquette that is so specific to New York -- a city that conflates public and private life. I should mention that I met this guy at a bar in the middle of winter. I was the bartender and he, alone, charming and thirsty, returned twice before asking for my phone number. Needless to say he appreciated my attention, which was stronger than the cocktail he kept coming back for. I must have made him hundreds of drinks over the course of our friendship, though they never amounted to more than a couple hours staring at the moon, or a night of watching movies together.

I tried cooking, I tried dining out, I tried just drinks, but nothing was working. I decided to put an end to it one exceptionally hot afternoon in August, over a couple grilled cheese sandwiches. He made them. Not well. For an hour we sat at the kitchen table while he waited for his lunch, and I tried to muster up the courage to tell him how I felt. Finally, months and months of pining would at least be put to rest, for better or worse. I sat there nervously watching him place his food into a frying pan. The sizzling sound of butter melting distracted me for a moment but finally I said, "Hey so I have a crush on you."

Is-this-a-date guy grabbed my hand and looked in my eyes and just as he was getting ready to speak, to inevitably let me down, the smoke alarm went off and I told him it was time for me to go. It was in this very illuminating moment that I realized the truth of my convictions. I was not in love with this man, I was infatuated with the idea of impressing him with my palate. And he was no-doubt offering the same intriguing challenge to other women, sharing endless meals and drinks with them. Suddenly my entire culinary identity felt pathetic, generic, cheap. I was a gastronomic whore like Amanda Hesser, trying to cook my way into a man's heart. And worse, a grilled cheese man.

Robert Byrne once said, "anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography." I see is-this-a-date-guy around occasionally, mostly at parties where there is no opportunity to suck oysters out of shells or dip strawberries into chocolate. I imagine he is still bringing all sorts of fancy women to all kinds of fancy restaurants. But I am also pretty sure that he spends every afternoon having lunch alone.

Follow Pascale Boucicaut on Twitter:www.twitter.com/pascaleeeee

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Friday, October 15, 2010

Pascale Boucicaut: The Way to a Man's Heart Is Not Through His Stomach

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