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By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
Mothers, girlfriends and wives have subscribed to this theory for centuries. Married men need look no further than their ever-expanding waist lines to see that women have embraced the idea, subtly disguising it in larger portions at the dinner table .
I, however, beg my girlfriend to leave my stomach alone.
The woman is the kindest soul I have ever met, a benevolent creature who embraces the Lord and doesn't have a bad word to say about anybody. But sweet mother of Martha Stewart, she has zero game in the kitchen. This girl's cooking skills are so remedial, she can't make waffles.
Seriously.
When I told my grandma Phyliss she couldn't cook, her eyes got so big I thought they'd dry out.
"Can't cook?" she said, turning to look me in the eye, her right hand still stirring a pot of gisantes. "What do you mean can't cook?"
This is called a generation gap.
When my grandma was growing up, if a Filipino female declared herself unfit in the kitchen she was shunned by her family. I tried, to no avail, to explain that my girlfriend is of a different generation, she isn't pinay.
So, last week, a night after a comment about her inability to make cereal, my girlfriend decided to make lunch.
After some loud fumbling in the kitchen and 30-minutes of cook time, she pulled three golden brown chicken breasts out of the oven, each coated with Parmesan cheese and some kind of mustard paste that had hardened into a crust. Not bad for a first-time cook, I said to myself. It looked great.
Now, I've eaten many terrible things in my life. I've dry-heaved at the scent of certain Filipino vegetables and I've hacked up pieces of my mother's experiment with tofu burgers. But my girlfriend's mustard and Parmesan cheese coated chicken was not good.
The chicken was dry, the mustard was chunky and it tasted somewhere between stale goat cheese and a tablespoon of Grey Poupon.
And I lied to her, Lord forgive me I lied to her. I told her it tasted great.
By cooking, she went outside of her comfort zone, a gesture I not only acknowledge, but praise. ... to a point.
As the meal trudged on, I found it tougher to disguise my distaste. Finally, I put my fork down and sat back on the couch. I glanced at her plate and noticed a third of her chicken breast left.
She didn't like it, I thought. Perfect. I am off the hook.
That's when we went to the kitchen and I started to clear my plate into the trash, avoiding her gaze all along.
"Good yeah?" she said, staring right at me, her tone inquisitive and challenging.
"Honestly?" I said, settling into my imminent demise. "It was bad. Real bad."
It doesn't take Dr. Phil to figure out what happened next. Needless to say, I was politely asked to leave my own apartment.
Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.
