Well I certainly wouldn't call Gordon Ramsay a cissy.

why should cooking be the preserve of women? i've been divorced a few years now and very rarely do i heat up a ready meal. i absolutely adore cooking stews, goulash, curries and soups in the winter and preparing salads in the summer.

This is more like it!
Given that food is such an important part of daily living I think cookery should be just as vital as the 4 "r's".
Our school had this subject as an option but it was very popular with the boys...one went on to become a well known and successful chef.

Ronnie, fancy a date with my best friend?

Been cooking since I was a boy scout and then a bothy-inhabiting mountaineer.Learnt a lot from my mother as well

#2 knock yourself out,Soup lovely.

we all have to eat, so whats so wrong in young lads being instructed in the use of a saucepan or a frying pan ? or do they expect their mums to carry on feeding them when they leave home ?

I was married for 12 years think my x-wife cooked about 10 times I love cooking and I think us men are actualy better at it :-)

#1 nor would I call Jamie Oliver a Chef !!!!

Cooking is another art form, or it can be.The kitchen library in our house is a source of information that provides an introduction to gastronomy among the guests who linger while enjoying pre-dinner drinks.
Barrons "Food Lover's Companion" is an excellent tool for creating a congenial type of a Trivial Pursuit game that often leads to guests taking part in the preperation of the meal, albeit scrubbing carrots or straining the sauce while passing along information on the newly discovered Asian, Arab or East Indian market in their neighbourhood.The world has opened up to us in many ways and "Home Economics" takes on a whole new meaning when we learn that shopping in these markets for the fresh basics in a curry mix costs one tenth of the price the supermarkets demand for a quantity of dried out and stale powder that will continue to rot in a kitchen cupboard. Buy from the bulk section only what you need. For example, "MADRAS MIX".
1-3 teaspoons ground chili
8-9 Tablesspoons ground coriander seeds
3 Tablespoons ground cumin seeds
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of ground fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 2/3 teaspoons of ground turmeric
4 whole curry leaves.
All of this cost me $1.29 and the friendly East Indian
shopkeeper made it up for me as we talked about food and exchanged recipes. He promised to do the same for Bombay Mix,Vindaloo Mix and even Chinese/Malay Mix. Start cooking guys and you will embrace the world.

Gordon Ramsey reminds me of some the masters I had when I went to school in the Scottish dark ages. Now Nick Nairn there's guy!

Well done! A wonderful and lucrative career. Pity the pseudo Scottish moron Gordon Ramsey has done so much to destroy what so many of us having been doing for years in trying to encourage youngsters into the hospitality industry. Don't buy his books please!!

Gordon Ramsay is a foul mouthed yob, probably became well known because of it.

Having worked in a hotel, had the chef spoken to me like Ramsay does, his orthodontist would have made a packet.

#11 Virgil. I love curry, more info please.

Seems like an excellent idea to me.