Make Him Fall in Love With You Blog
Posted on October 12, 2015 by Jackie DeKnock No comments
GOURMET LOVE
“Spreading love, one recipe at a time!”
The back-story that inspired the menu that inspired the recipes! Foodie and Love stories combining love, romance, sex and adventure (remember this is all fiction my friends)! Let me take my paintbrush, paint the scene and the mood to take you there…
Inspired Quote: “Stay patient and trust your journey.” ~ Unknown
Love Dateline: Love Can Happen Anywhere, Anytime…be ready!
Where: Anywhere
When: Anytime
Mood: Courageous & vulnerable
Emotion: Joy
Never Say Never…
Time for the truth, the whole truth and nothin’ but! I won’t lie to you, truth it is. Oh boy, this blog entry is a tough one to write, right about now, as the new romantic interest in my life is Gourmet Safari (nope, not a man). I kid you not, I’d never lie to you! At this juncture of my life, I don’t want to make a man fall in love with me. I know that sounds odd, however, at the moment I’m not looking for romantic distractions in my life, I’ve had enough to last a lifetime (as you’ll read from my voluminous fictional stories…so single it is for this girl). Yep, single, simple, no complications, no waiting for texts, no email, no phone, no letters (yep with ole-fashioned stamps), no post cards (more stamps), no smoke signals nor carrier pigeons to deliver messages…no expectations! And the added bonus and more importantly is that I can focus on Gourmet Love and spreading love, one recipe at a time! Ahhh, yes, the perfect peaceful relationship, a drama-free zone…I love it for now, as I love my own company! I’ll never say never though, everyone wants love in their life! Who doesn’t I ask?
Très Romantique.
OK, I’ll tell you one short story of a certain Prince Hans and how he fell in love with a certain Princess (apparently he did anyway…yep, there’s another story, you’ll cross paths with him another time not to worry)! She didn’t even try to make him fall in love with me…he just did. That was many, many moons ago one fateful night at an elegant ball (you know the kind – gowns, black ties, evening gloves, stuffy handshakes and smiles) in Canada’s capital of romance and style, Montreal. Allow me to set the scene for you:
Montreal city of romance…très romantique
Ritz Hotel… très romantique
Elegant Ball…très romantique
Cocktail party… très romantique
Black ties and gowns… très romantique
Decadent food… très romantique
Music and dance… très romantique
Dry ice… kidding (just seeing if you’re paying attention, who does that anymore?)
Wine… très romantique
Beer (they ran out of wine)… pas très romantique (and definitely not fitting for a Princess…a Prince maybe, but NEVER a Princess)
That’s the scene…all set. With so much romance in the air (except for the beer), who could avoid falling in love? That’s how/when it all happened. It just happened and the Princess was just being herself…c’est tout. Just to give you the backstory, you see she was also wearing a beautiful turquoise grown straight from the fashion capital of the world – Paris. Her stunning gown perhaps helped to pave the way to his heart, her secret weapon. Prince Hans and the Princess crossed paths that evening over cocktails, on the dance floor and the rest was history – that one fateful evening. Their fate was sealed (or so it seemed..yes, foreshadowing). And being honest…she didn’t actually ‘work’ at making him fall in love with her, it just happened (at first she suspected that perhaps it was her gown, but as the ball wore on, she suspected that it was just purely her). She felt like the ‘belle of the ball.’ Here’s why…she was just being herself, no airs, no pretentiousness, she was just being herself, a nice ‘real’ down-to-earth Princess. That’s apparently what Prince Hans liked about her and what made him fall head-over-heels in love. I’m sorry to burst your romantic bubble at this point in the story, but I always tell the truth. This was the epitome of unrequited love (sadly), the Princess had a whole other life and path that she was already following and she couldn’t alter that path. Was she flattered, yes (a Prince of all men), but her destiny was already cast…more to come another time, another story!
The Moral
So…to share the moral of the story for you in the real ‘non-Princess-world’ – what Prince Hans and other Princes (men) are looking for in a Princess (women) is simply you just being YOU! As an aside – the other moral of the story is never, and I mean never follow wine with beer (even if it’s from your goblet)…the outcome is never good. I digress… The list below confirms the Princesses’ suspicions…she was so right on the money (gold coins) just to be herself. Want me to be the go-between and share her list “Why men fall in love?” OK, sure, anything to help those looking for love, it’s very enlightening…allow me:
What Actually Makes A Man Fall In Love With YOU? Short answer, being YOU!
Here are the top 10 qualities that real men are looking for in real women!
Smile. I’ll start with a quote, you know I love quotes: “Never frown, because you never know when someone is falling in love with your smile.” Anonymous. Never a truer word spoken, always smile, the first step to being you.
Be Real. Be the real you, the natural you and not the women that you see in magazines, on TV or up in ‘lights’ on billboards (or in the courtyard of your kingdom). You are perfect just the way you are, don’t go for the airbrushed, coiffed, made up to the hilt look, she’s not real, she doesn’t exist in real life. She’s plastic, she has a certain air about her and her name is Barbie. Funnily enough, I’ve been called ‘Barbie’ several times in my life – and my boyfriend at the time, yep, Ken. The thing is that I’ve never ‘gone’ for the Barbie version of myself, I’m always ‘real’ from the inside out. I’m always going for simply being me, not pretending to be Barbie nor anyone else! Ladies, You are perfect and one of a kind just the way you are – embrace the real, authentic you – men will love for you being you!
Be Complete. You are already a complete, whole person all by your lonesome as a card-carrying member of the lonely-hearts club (see you at the next meeting, I’ll save you a seat). You don’t need a man to be whole, although, sure, I get it that it would be nice! Have a love affair with yourself; you are the half of a relationship, so why not ‘date yourself’ first. This way, you’ll never be stood-up nor jilted (that’s never fun). And you won’t ‘buy’ this famous line from Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise told Renee Zellweger, “You complete me.” What was he thinking, ew. You already know that you are complete and perfect just the way you are (you’ll never need Tom Cruise to complete you…OK, maybe Iceman from Top Gun) ! Period! It’s OK to want a special relationship, but you don’t need it to be happy. You really don’t. You know how it works, if you think you NEED it, you won’t find it!
Be Confident: If there ever was a perfume that attracted men, it would be a bottle of ‘Uber Self-confidence’! When you know your own worth, it shows. And it sells…just like the perfume would! There is something about a confident woman that exudes beauty to men. She knows who she is, what her worth is, her core values, what she believes in and she stands behind all of it. Her mantra: ”I am the desired object.” The thing is that she absolutely, 100% knows it. As we all know, no one can think you are fabulous unless you do first! It always starts with you. Don’t ever forget that you are a catch and get out fishing!
Be Beautiful: Be your own super-model, not someone else’s. You are one-of-a-kind, not meant to fit into a mould created by someone else. You broke the mold when you were born, you’re one of a kind. This reminds me of a line that someone I worked with a long, long time ago loved to say: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way through.” Now in hindsight, those words have a different meaning to me today. Beauty comes from the inside out – it starts with a beautiful heart first! This beauty cannot be airbrushed or enhanced with makeup, it’s the real stuff deep down inside. That’s what men are looking for ladies, the real deal to keep and hold their hearts close.
Be Passionate: Men love a woman who is passionate about life, she leads her life with purpose, following her heart and soul. She has goals, believes in her dreams, and holds onto to her values tightly! She is motivated by fairness, forgiveness, giving back and grace. Her passion permeates every cell of life – relationships included and men the beneficiary! She knows what she wants and goes after it wholeheartedly!
Be a Cheerleader. No, it’s not the cheerleader-type with pom-poms that you might be thinking (that was so high school). This cheerleader is someone who is on their side, in their corner…that’s what men want. A man falls in love with you because he knows he can be himself around you and feels safe sharing his innermost, private feelings. Have a listen to the song and you’ll see what I mean:
Be Classy. Most guys prefer “the girl next door” versus the “sex bomb” – look and attitude. Guys like wholesome, elegant and classy…let it show! “It’s not how you look, its how you feel!” Remember this famous Billy Crystal quote, it’s actually both your look and your ‘feel’ in this instance! Class can’t be bought, you either have it or you don’t! Bring it on!
Be Demanding. Expect and demand that a real man will do exactly what he says he is going to do. Actions speak louder than words, expect him to respect you and match words and actions. Guys don’t want you demanding love from them. But they will definitely get it if you demand respect for your feelings, your body and your time.
Be Mysterious. Never give a man 100% of yourself, always hold part of you back. As we all know, it adds to your allure. In every relationship, there is always a pursuer and a distancer. Try your best to be in the latter camp (it just works out so much better). Don’t do what I do and wear your heart on your sleeve (although I can’t help it). Guys (unfortunately for those of us with long sleeves) worry about the emotional neediness of women (with good reason, OK, let’s face it). Fight that and keep your feelings in check and to yourself, or better yet, share them with your friends. Eagerness to a man is like insect repellent to mosquitoes. He doesn’t want you to cling. He wants to pursue you. He wants to wonder what you think. Where you are, what you’re doing. And sometimes what you’re wearing…ever had that question asked…if so, he’s definitely in hot pursuit. Take the time to get to know him. Make him spend time getting to know you. He wants to be a cave man, guys appreciate a slow win, so let him.
Be YOU. Be genuine, have self-respect, be confident. You are perfect just being you, the way you are! This reminds me of something someone said to me when I was just about to set off for Paris years ago “Never search for the perfect man because he’s searching for the perfect woman!’ Interestingly enough, we are all already perfect just the way we are. All of these key ingredients blended together into one perfect real self-assured and very, very special woman or Princess (your call)!
Real men, gentlemen, please come and find your real ‘Princess’ and love. Be love.
XO
PS Love your food, what comes from the heart touches the heart! Craving isn’t a ‘Bad Word,’ food IS sexy!
PSS I came up with this handy wallet-sized ‘Manly Ranking Scale’ – pull it out when you need it! It’s similar to the Richter Magnitude Scale that measures earthquakes (the idea came to me as I survived a major earthquake in Vegas years ago). I’ll grade each man of my life at the time of my Love Dateline story! Feel free to grade the man of your life, If he’s a +10 (and I hope he is), I’d say go for it!:
I’ll grade this fateful night as a +1 with an early warning signal going off (foreshadowing… perhaps more Prince Hans to come)?
Check out the complete “Make Him Fall in Love With You” menu
Foodie Dateline: The Boys Are Back In Town!
Where: Mount Pleasant (yes, real place)
When: Spring 2013
Mood: Fun mood
Emotion: Joy
The Boys in School.
For three and a half years I taught cooking classes at my farmhouse culinary studio. Now that’s a lot of classes – roughly 412 ½ at last count (½ because one had to be cut short due to a bad case of…nah, I won’t go into detail)! One of the programs that I taught was a series men’s cooking class (they just cook very differently compared to women, so I decided to separate them)! Here’s why – men follow recipes to the ‘T,’ as they would follow an owners’ manual for their lawnmower or snowblower or shaver (so they take more time and have to read and follow every single solitary step). They also always made me laugh, I have never laughed as much during any of my other cooking classes, I laughed until I cried! They just pain and simple made me laugh the minute they strolled into my culinary studio. They were particularly entertained as well when it came to kitchen gadgets (nozzles, taps, knives, garlic press), they also wanted them all to take home…particularly the reamer (I didn’t ask). I offered a series of Healthy Men’s Classes and this Menu – Make Him Fall in Love With You – was one of the classes that I taught for aging body parts (the Menu was originally designed for my Men’s Healthy Class Series and not for Gourmet Love). They loved this class, this Menu and almost every dish turned out…that is except one – the innocuous “Fabulous Fruit Salad” – who’d of thought a fruit salad could go awry considering the innocence of the dish? I didn’t…
Meet Robin Hood.
Robin Hood, one of my all-time favourite students, arrived late as usual. He was always forgiven because he could make me laugh (what a sense of humour). How can you be upset when you’re laughing I ask! Being late, as usual, he (as he often was) was relegated to making dessert. Great, seemed straightforward enough – a simple harmless fruit salad! This time I thought, OK, you can do this one on your own, so I mostly left him to it with a little bit of direction. By this point he had taken many classes, so I thought that he had the chopping techniques down and I knew that he could read the recipe (painstakingly yes, as men do). The peeling, coring, slicing of the apples went smoothly enough, so he was left to the task. I turned my attention to the other ‘chefs’ and assisted them with their dishes. All was silent from Robin’s corner, so I thought “He’s progressing along no problem.” At one point I turned my attention back to him and he was so pleased with himself that he was managing so well without my direction – as pleased as punch (or as a peacock)! Progress at last!! I ventured over in his direction to congratulate him and at that split second I realized that he was slicing the mango…the whole mango…complete with skin and all and it was all going into the salad. He was so pleased with himself, he was on his 3rd ingredient of the salad and hadn’t asked me one question, how could I burst his bubble. I had to just let him add the mango, skin an all, he was mid-stream. Teaching cooking is all about building confidence in the kitchen and telling him that he’d made a mistake would undo all of the work that I’d done over the months of classes. I couldn’t do that. I chose to just remain calm and let him proceed with finishing his Fabulous Fruit Salad.
To Eat or Not to Eat Mango Skin? That is the question I ask of thee?
The question I secretly asked myself was “Can one eat mango skin?” I researched it online when I stole away from the class for a second (when they weren’t handling knives) and found out that responses to the question ranged from “Ick!” to “No way!” to “Ugh. The peel tastes awful!” to “Sure. No problem.” Well, I thought, “Can you? Or can’t you?” Dessert was going to be served and eaten within the next hour or so and I didn’t want to poison anyone. Ever. Here’s what I found out in haste:
Mangoes have some not-so-nice relatives in the plant world. Mangoes are in the family Anacardiaceae (I can’t even pronounce that, should I eat it), the same family as Poison Ivy, Poison Sumac, and Poison Oak (that’s a lot of poisons in a row). NOT GOOD. Mangoes produce the oil urushiol, a mixture of several chemicals that produces a characteristic skin rash in sensitive individuals. Fortunately it is produced in small quantities. GOOD. Some sources say the fruit’s flesh and skin contains very low levels of urushiol. If a person is sensitive to urushiol, they may potentially have a reaction after touching the mango’s skin, particularly if there is sap present. ROBIN WAS JUST FINE WITHOUT AN ALLERGIC REACTION, WHEW! If their reaction is extreme, some individuals may need to avoid eating mangoes. NOT GOOD. Essentially, one has to determine their own sensitivity to the peel of a mango and proceed accordingly.
OK, Now What?
With dessert hour creeping closer by the second, I debated – destroy Robin’s kitchen confidence in one fell swoop, painstakingly try to remove every last trace of mango that was buried in the salad or just serve it and take a chance? What to do? I had so little time to react, Robin was staring lovingly at his dessert, I didn’t want to break them up. I had no Plan B for dessert either, so I decided to just let Robin serve his pride ‘n joy dessert and hope for the best! Chances were good that no one would react…I hoped. They ate dessert, I even ate some dessert so that I could tell Robin how fabulous it was. I waited, watched, sipped wine and hoped that everyone (including myself) would be OK (crossing my fingers behind my back and holding my breath). Thank goodness this story has a good ending…the guys were all OK, no allergic reactions and they loved Robin’s dessert. I never, ever told anyone this story, no, not even Robin. Now you know! Your “Fabulous Fruit Salad” Robin, was truly fabulous! Whew!
Robin Hood Dedication (and a BIG hug).
This Make Him Fall in Love With You Menu is dedicated solely to Robin Hood – the ‘best’ fruit salad maker ever – typically the last to arrive to my cooking classes, often delegated to dessert! This one’s for you Robin, you have frequently been ‘my real life Robin Hood’ – many a time coming to my rescue. No, not stealing from the rich to give to the poor or anything like that, but just being a really, really good friend to me! And who always encouraged me to be me!! When I first met you Robin, you shared a famous Latin quote with me on day one of our teacher/student relationship. I didn’t understand you at the time (the Latin part), but I’ve never forgotten it: “Nome sine doctrina vita est quassi mortis imageo.” Life without knowledge is but a shadow of death. You are so right Robin, I was happy to share my culinary knowledge with you. Thank you for being my student, I loved teaching you! I love my Robin Hood.
Wish you were here!
XO
PS I stand corrected – realizing that as a teacher, I always have to be prepared to learn from my students – this is one of my lessons. Years later (before I published this site) when I told Robin about his culinary faux-pas, I learnt something about him that came as a surprise to me…he had a fascination with mangos (I suppose it could always be worse)!. He instantly came back with this rebuttal, reminding me “When you’re making a decision – to peel or not to peel – you have to consider all angles.” He was well-aware of the numerous health benefits of mango peels informing me that “The peel of mangos are found to have all sorts of health properties.” He was in a dilemma whether to peel or not to peel – he scanned the room and looked at his life-long friends and his mentor (me) – and decided that he would leave the peels on because of the health benefits (and not necessarily the flavour). To this day, every single one of his friends is in perfect health and he feels that it may have something to do with his mango peel decision. He rests his case.