Dear English Gentleman,

My girlfriend’s birthday is coming up and I’d like to do something special for her. Usually, like a good boyfriend and gentleman, I take her out to a concert or a movie and then dinner at a restaurant, but this time I’d like to show her what an awesome boyfriend I am by cooking her dinner with my very own hands.

The problem? I can’t cook! All my bachelor life I’ve survived on runs to the local fast food joint or microwaving burritos. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a more sophisticated meal every once in a while, but it would be nice if I didn’t have to spend all that money on restaurants.

Do you have any suggestions or recipes you may share that are elegant, tasty and don’t require the happless victim to have a PhD in cookery to execute?

Sincerely,

Ham-fisted Cook Wannabe

The English Gentleman Replies:

Dear Ham,

You are a very lucky man indeed. Forget about microwaving small Spanish donkeys and get ready to cast off on a lifelong voyage of culinary discovery, a voyage your girlfriend will be sure to want to share.

The key thing here is that you want to cook for your girlfriend – cooking is like anything else – the first thing is that you have got to want to do it! It’s a small step between wanting to do something and doing it. Ignore all the advice you will get from elsewhere – be ambitious – and be original. Be daring. Above all avoid simply trying to replicate your girlfriend’s favourite dish; how much more wonderful to discover something new that your girlfriend doesn’t even know she likes…try these simple seven steps:

1. Begin a couple of weeks ahead by spending at least an hour (preferably two or three) in the cooking section of a good second hand bookshop (the sort that welcomes someone spending an hour in their shop). 2. Pick out two or three recipes which appeal to you – do not rule anything out because you think it’s too complicated. Only rule out those recipes which involve things you know your girlfriend doesn’t like. 3. Buy the book or dare I say books (you will need the other recipes later on in your life). 4. Read the recipes through and make a list of the ingedients and any utensils you might need. If you need any of the latter – and you should if it’s an interesting recipe (a sawn-off balloon whisk, for example), buy them from a catering supplies store, NOT a high street cookware shop. 5. With a couple of days to go, buy the best ingedients you can find. 6. Preparation is key – starting the day before perhaps, prepare any bits you can e.g. make bread dough and refrigerate; marinate things; chop up vegetables. 7. Cook the meal.

Two final tips. Firstly do not be strict about measuring quantities out nor times in the oven, etc. – if it looks ready then it probably is ready. Secondly, you will necessarily make a bit of a mess – but the key here is to clean up at least some of it as you go along. And when you and your girlfriend have finished the meal, the real gentleman offers to clean up. Although this of course may have to wait until the morrow.