Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook (Cookbooks) [Paperback]

Drew Campbell (Author), Ann Marie Michaels (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cookbooks | Publication Date: October 1, 2004

Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook is really two books--a relationship guide and a cookbook--presented together in a hysterically funny, yet sophisticated voice. The authors carefully instruct their male readers to determine the type of girl his date is. They offer ten distinct types and clear profiles of each type. The book offers five complete menus per girl, as well as numerous other tips on how to get the girl. This is real information and these are real recipes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Forget about being yourself: if you want to impress a potential mate, figure out what "type" she is, then cook her dinner based on what you presume are her preferred tastes. At least that’s what Michaels, who edits a matchmaking Web site, and Campbell, a Universal Studios employee and author of two show business guides, would have readers believe. Their blatant attempt to help men score in the bedroom by impressing women in the kitchen presents menus that, the authors say, will please various categories of women. The Academic Girl, for example, will go for "Papa’s Tapas, or A Moveable Feast: Hemingway’s Picnic of Spanish Tapas"; while The Career Girl should respond to "Midtown Power Dining: Ahi, Shrimp, Scallops and Vegetables on a Bed of Baby Greens." Despite its ridiculous hook, the book does offer an array of appetizing dishes of various levels. The authors offer helpful suggestions, including shopping lists, timetables and ideas for scoring "bonus points" (e.g., serve fajitas in a cast-iron skillet because "sizzling is festive").
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover

It's a fact. Cooking is dead sexy. Women will always choose men with wooden spoons over men with Gold Cards (unless you're in L.A.). But there's a world of difference between any dinner and the right dinner. Should you serve sushi or meatloaf? Play Sting's greatest hits or the latest Yo La Tengo single? Wear the Birkenstock sandals or the Armani loafers? It all depends on the Girl.

In Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook (Globe Pequot Press, October 2004) authors Drew Campbell and Ann Marie Michaels teamed up to teach men about women-specifically how to best determine what type of date they've found, and what type of food will keep her coming back.

Sound complicated? It isn't. All you need is a small supply of tools, a permanent stock of 12 staple foods, and 10 additional ingredients you can buy through the express lane (with a pit stop to the liquor store). There are 50 complete meals, including dessert, for everyone from the Academic Girl to the Uptown Girl. It gets better.

The key to an enchanted evening is choosing not only the right food, but the right wine, music, and even shoes that will turn her on, not turn her stomach. Cooking to Hook Up steers you right to the winning combination for each girl. The authors give you Girl-specific tips on what to talk about, what flowers to buy, and which magazines to leave on the coffee table. There's even an easy wine-buying guide to give you the goods on the grapes. All of the critical information is here, such as "Cleaning the Bathroom," "Removing All Indications of Previous Women," and "Bailing Out: Dealing with Disaster." If all goes well, you can skip to the last chapter, "So You Got Lucky: Recipes for Breakfast."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Globe Pequot; 1st edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762729678
• ISBN-13: 978-0762729678
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #566,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome cookbook, August 13, 2004

By 

RJS "Cooking good" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook (Cookbooks) (Paperback)

This is truly one of the great cookbooks I have seen, not merely because the recipes are phenomenal. The matches to the date type are as accurate as they are hysterical. Having made several of the dishes in here, I can tell you that the recipes are not super complicated or missing steps/ingrediesnts (a la Marth Stewart). I hope to hell they do a series of these of these cookbooks.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amusing guide to using a plate to entice your date, April 20, 2005

By 

T. Kirkham "The Moonsault Chef" (Boston MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook (Cookbooks) (Paperback)

The publicity for this book quickly intones the phrase "It's A Fact: Cooking is dead sexy." And the whole idea of this cooking guide is how to use food to land that dream lady.

Authors Michaels and Campbell, formerly husband and wife, decided after being married for a few years that they worked better as a couple of friends rather than being married. So they divorced and wrote what is essentially a workbook for the dating scene.

The book is divided into three distinct sections: Preparing to cook for a date, what to cook for a variety of "girls" (the girl next door, the party girl, the gourmet girl, etc), and finally, what to cook for breakfast should the male this book is aimed at "get lucky" (their words, not mine).

Each of the Girl sections gives an overview of the type of girl being talked about, followed by several recipes for the perfect date, and a chronology of what needs to be done when, from shopping to preparation to cooking. It also offers up suggestions on what to have lying around on the coffee table, what kind of drinks to serve, and so forth.

Most of all, it is the wit and whimsy that is woven throughout the book that makes it special. Although it IS a serious guide for the hapless male in the dating pool, the humor in each chapter is evident, and the tone throughout the book is somewhat tongue in cheek.

Still, the recipes are worth having for the most part, and the other tips help you along in your quest to land the perfect "girl". Clearly, author Campbell probably didn't follow his own advice; if he did, he and Michaels would probably still be married. But it's a fun romp and a decidedly different way to approach having fun and success while cooking, and would make an amusing and fun addition to any cookbook library.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reduces the stress, December 19, 2004

By 

PilotRick (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook (Cookbooks) (Paperback)

Here's a not-so-secret secret: men are linear. We think in terms of how to get from point A to point Z. Having a cookbook that keeps both the ingredients and process simple and by the numbers *plus* helps you select a meal and ambience specific to the kind of girl your dating? Bliss. This is *the* cookbook for men, and not just for guys who are dating. Married men, here's a thought: surprise and spoil your wives with a fantastic meal. The recipes are easy to follow, and even the klutziest of guys should be able to pull them off.