Real Men Can Cook!

Yesterday I attended a very unusual cook-out: it was all about male culinary empowerment, a brain-child of my friend LK. In his words, "Last month, when I was wandering around Harlem, I came across this leaflet about some Father's Day event, called "Real Men Cook". The whole theme kinda grew on me. And I've been having conversations with many of you about
cooking in general and recipe-sharing, went on to bake cornbread with R and O (ask if you haven't heard the story yet!)... so, why not, I thought, have some of us guys come together every now and then and cook together, sharing some of the easy and delicious recipes that we have up our sleeves. Or in "Good Housekeeping" cookbooks. Ladies are welcome, of course, but it's men who'll rule the kitchen :) So we'll learn from each other, ask questions, get tips, drink beer, all the good stuff."
Well, the 1st edition of RMCC was an unmitigated success! A bunch of guys cooked while I sat around and chatted and ate...I could get used to this :) We talked a lot about food, and I really learnt a thing or two. About 10 people attended the event. L plans to make copies of the recipes to give to everyone so that all the guys will start building up their own tried-and-tested recipe collection. Three guys cooked yesterday's meal.
First as cool summer appetizers, we had a duo of salads.

The salad on the left is an very unusual lettuce-and-fruit salad with a dressing of balsamic vinegar and soy sauce. This is M's very own creation and I must say that it worked very well. The mango in the salad was ripe enough that it almost became part of the dressing and the whole sweet and salty taste was fantastic!
The salad on the right is noodles in a peanut sauce, a recipe that I had tried before from epicurious and that V made this time with much enthusiasm and success.
The rest of the meal, entree and dessert, was made by the host LK. He amazed me by putting it together very quickly and efficiently.

The entree was steamed basmati rice served with egg masala, a simple curry of sauteed onions and tomatoes with some Indian spices. This is certainly a crowd-pleaser and tasted awesome.
Finally, the dessert just blew my mind: it was a coconut-custard pie, warm and comforting, served with ice-cream, whipped cream and berries. I HAVE to get the recipe for it!

The evening did not begin and end with culinary stuff. After dessert, one of the guys pulled out several books from his bag and announced that we were going to have a poetry reading. The poems were as diverse as one can imagine...starting from ditties by Shel Silverstein to love poetry by Pablo Neruda to a translation of the Iliad! We even read "The Cat In The Hat" from cover to cover (all 88 words of it!). This was a wonderful end to the evening.
Go guys! I am so proud of you, and hope these events happen very often ;)!