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" Time was, you were pretty sure that the best food was the kind that was the easiest to find. Or the kind you consume at a stadium, with a game going on in front of you. This was before everyone watched the Food Network and Top Chef and the sadistic reality shows hosted by that angry British chef who screams at his &amp;quot;cheftestants&amp;quot; until the veins in his neck bulge and his shrinking victims either cry or go to the hospital with heart trouble.   Well, my friend, the game has changed.   Cooking at home is now fully documented as cool, exceedingly good for you, fun to do, and, most significantly, an attractor of women. Plus, forces are conspiring to make it increasingly easy to do. When I was getting started, the books were a lot heavier, the guidance was much harder to find, and there wasn&amp;#039;t a kitchen store (or two) in every mall. Like golf-club manufacturers, the kitchen-equipment folks constantly improve the tools of the trade, making nearly foolproof pots, pans, knives, steamers, pizza ovens, pasta rollers, and blenders, all virtually maintenance free and priced to move. (You don&amp;#039;t need a lot of gadgets, but if you want to indulge the male tendency to overstock the toolbox, you can.) And all the information you could want is constantly streaming at you like a runaway truck \u2014 books, newspaper stories, Web sites, apps, how-to videos, this article you&amp;#039;re reading, even entire magazines devoted to single subjects like charcuterie or wedding cakes or pickles, all to help you source it, buy it, rub it, season it, roast it, braise it, frost it, sear it, stir-fry it, or, perhaps, sous vide it. You have power. I hope you&amp;#039;ll use it. Like I said, you don&amp;#039;t need much to get started. Despite what most cookbooks and the Internet suggest, you really need only three knives. I suggest an eight-inch chef&amp;#039;s knife, a four-inch paring knife, and a serrated bread/utility knife. Buy another only when you know exactly why you need it. Opt for a national brand with forged-steel blades and a full tang, which sounds sexy but simply means the forged metal is a single piece running from the tip of the blade all the way through to the base of the handle. Twelve-piece cookware sets for ninety-nine bucks are routinely hawked on late-night TV \u2014 often by friends of mine. But with a mere five pieces, you can do whatever you like \u2014 slay the dragon and then cook its tenderloin in the style of the duke of Wellington, if you want to. I like cast iron coated with enamel for longevity and forgiveness if I happen to take my eyes off the prize while pouring Chianti. One twelve-inch saut\u00E9/frypan, one eight-inch omelet pan, a seven- or eight-quart spaghetti pot with an insert, a lasagna/roasting pan, and a four-quart saucepan. That&amp;#039;s it. When you are ready to tackle Moroccan cooking, I will help you find the couscoussier. Now get a couple of basic cookbooks with some nice pictures of things you want to eat. (There&amp;#039;s one called Eat Like a Man, by Esquire. There are several by me, including a new one, Molto Batali. You could start with those.) Read through them, choose a few recipes you think you can handle, and follow the steps all the way to the eating part. With that you can make virtually anything I can in about the same amount of time. Shop often, shop hard, and spend for the best stuff available \u2014 logic dictates that you can make delicious food only with delicious ingredients. There are two activities in life in which we can lovingly and carefully put something inside of someone we love. Cooking is the one we can do three times a day for the rest of our lives, without pills. In both activities, practice makes perfect. All recipes as told to Francine Maroukian "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/how-to/a10782/mario-batali-men-cooking-0911/>