Attention, men who aren’t getting laid: Listen. Speaking for all womankind here, I am so sorry. It is truly terrible news that that one skank didn’t bang you that one time, even after you purchased for her a generous portion of smoked-salmon fettuccine Alfredo and unlimited breadsticks and two glasses of Riesling. I am sorry that your balls became so very, very blue.
I’m sure it was the skank’s fault for being a frigid gold digger (or, more accurately, a smoked-salmon-fettuccine-Alfredo-and-unlimited-breadsticks-and-Riesling digger, or, even more accurately, a person looking for interesting conversation and possibly even a few moments of genuine human connection), and definitely not YOUR fault for being a creepy opportunist who thinks that supplying a woman with carbs and cream sauce is a purely economic transaction that entitles you to stick your johnson into her mouth or vagina posthaste. Although, while we’re on the topic, why are you even going out with a woman who would order fettuccine Alfredo in a restaurant? She sounds fat, like a big manatee or Rosie O’Donnell. Don’t settle, brah! You are in it to win it! You are powerful, you have a johnson, and your johnson deserves to go in a hole of some kind. This is America. There’s GOT to be a better way!!!
Spencer Walker’s Cook to Bang aims to show you that way. Subtitled The Lay Cook’s Guide to Getting Laid, Cook to Bang offers like a million totally good points, historical facts, and quesadilla recipes guaranteed to get a woman’s vagina to open up and unfold like an Awesome Blossom from Chili’s. (The book is ostensibly also for undersexed women looking to cook to bang, but those references are clearly perfunctory edits. “The art of war is about making your enemy your friend… or in this case your girlfriend or boyfriend.” Everyone knows that if a woman isn’t getting banged, it’s because she is either an uptight bitch or a disgusting fatty.)
You could read the whole book—and you DEFINITELY should if you enjoy hilarious cultural references like New Coke (timely!) and Whole Foods (aka “Whole Paycheck,” where does he come up with this stuff!?)—but for aspiring bangers who just don’t have time to read all 230 pages of anecdotes about the different time periods and locations in which Spencer Walker has received blue balls from skanks, I condensed it for you. Here you go.
1. What the fuck is cooking to bang and why should you do it!?!?!? Is there a historical precedent for preparing food and then eating it in the company of another human person? Walker explains:
Food and sex have been linked since the dawn of civilization. Cavemen once roasted saber-toothed tiger kebabs for their cave babes. This set the mood for Cro-Magnon copulation. Neanderthals knew the importance of cooking for their lovers. This has been lost on the modern dating population. Most of these First World suckers are willing to blow half their paycheck on a fancy dinner only to end up with a doggy bag and blue balls.
This is an excellent point. Cavemen knew that they didn’t have to spend piles and piles of shiny stones and lizard pelts to wine and dine their cavewomen in fancy cave restaurants, only to get back to their cave apartments and NOT get banged in nests made of their own hair and dung. You modern cavebitches are triflin’.
2. Better yet, cooking and banging is even easier now than it was for those cavemen: “Cooking has evolved from brontosaurus burgers to eight-course chef’s tasting menus. Seduction started with clubbing your fancy then dragging them by the hair into your cave.” We should not take our modern good fortune for granted! Although dragging an unconscious skank back to your Cro-Magnon rape cave might have been a bit easier on the wallet, modern men don’t have to spend nearly as much money on bludgeoning instruments. Why not try a nice piece of salmon, instead?
3. Know your skank. Walker walks potential bangers through the different kinds of “whores” they might meet while out on the town, along with specific seduction techniques tailored to each one. Here’s the entry on “HIPSTER HO-BAGS”:
Every time I indulge in this flesh, I do so ironically. But then I do the walk of shame thinking, “Fucking hipsters.” This scourge of kids in pants so tight they cut off the circulation to their brains is the lowest point on the devolutionary scale. Nothing unites this tribe double-dipped in pretension save for indifference—that and cocaine.
Hipster Ho-Bags, Walker explains, “will eat almost anything if it seems weird, different, or retro.” That’s why he suggests serving cactus fajitas (oh, those Mexicans and their traditional ironic foodstuffs!) and a “Sexier Than Dead Elvis Sinwich,” which is literally just a peanut butter and banana sandwich. It couldn’t be easier! Now put your dick in there.
4. What if you identified your skank, executed the appropriate type of quesadilla perfectly, and the skank STILL doesn’t want to bang? No worries, says Walker. It all comes back to the caveman again: “A Cook to Bang chef is a wartime general in the kitchen and bedroom. Never give up like Poland in World War II. Fight until your last dying breath. Get what you want by any means necessary.” RAPE THE SHIT OUT OF THAT SKANK. Don’t not rape a skank, like Poland in World War II. Skank.
5. Light some candles, you animal. 
Wow, that is stomach churning stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever been so put off just by reading a review of a book – morbid curiosity usually goads me into at least flipping through train wrecks such as these, but in this case I don’t think I’ll have any trouble making an exception.
Also, fucking Poland? Dude. DUDE. Do not fuck with Poland’s WWII history. The Warsaw Uprising Museum in Warsaw is mind-blowing.
http://www.warsawuprising.com/
What a dick!
Any woman (or man) who fucks this denigrating piece of shit deserves whatever STD they catch – UGH!
I love you, Lindy West.
god seriously, who DOESN’T love cocaine?
I haven’t read this book, but there was a far more positive review in the alt weekly where I live. Maybe the author of this book is a piece of shit — but this review sounds like it was written by a person who was offended by the premise. As I understand it, this is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, date-night cookbook for single men on a budget. To suggest that the author’s war metaphor is a call to commit rape is really pretty absurd.
I haven’t read this book, but there was a far more positive review in the alt weekly where I live. Maybe the author of this book is a piece of shit — but this review sounds like it was written by a person who was offended by the premise. As I understand it, this is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, date-night cookbook for single men on a budget. To suggest that the author’s war metaphor is a call to commit rape is really pretty absurd.
Pants aren’t located in-between the brain and the heart. If worn properly I fail to see how they cut off the circulation to the brain.
I think we could call this book “Cook to NEVER Bang Again”!
Then again, it could probably be subtitled “A cookbook by a guy who’s never BEEN banged”.
Is his last name really Walker…or Wanker?
Uh, why are you wasting my time reviewing a POS book? So I won’t accidentally read it and find out it’s a POS? Or is it so Ms. Lindy can waste my time reading the wonderful writings of Ms. Lindy? And what an easy, lazy topic to demonstrate the wonderfulness — stupid men. Gosh I’m impressed.
Every man knows the cookbook that lands the chicks (excuse me; that lands the “hos”) is Ted Nugent’s Kill It and Grill It. Any other cookbook is for pantywaists.
Dang it, Lindy. Stop being so awesome before some big city paper steals you away. Stop!
To all the nonbelievers,
I used some of Spencer Walker’s tips and banged a skank last night.
And, actually, Poland fought like a sumbitch even in 1939, holding out for several months against not only Nazi Germany’s entire army but the Red Army, too. Then lots of Poles escaped to England and flew for the RAF for the rest of the shooting match. I think a better analogy is probably France, unfortunately.
Lindy should write a cooking guide for ambitious lovers, I would read it.
smitty . . . I’ve heard of men naming their dicks, but never their hands.
Lindy, I think you need a Stranger “cook to bang” recipe test night. Everyone can taste dishes and judge on how horny it’s getting them.
@7: Well, honestly? If you’re on a budget, don’t buy cookbooks. Waste of money on the whole when you can get perfectly good recipes online or borrow expensive ones from the library.
@13 dont worry about it.
I’m sorry you found the idea insulting that young women have such a massive upper hand when it comes to sex with young men, and that those men are desperate enough to do ANYTHING for a moment of your companionship.
The whole book is obviously playing on a “joke” that men have understood for generations when it comes to the dynamics of dating- women are the selectors, for the most part in America, and female youth carries hugely more status and social currency than young males, who may be strapping but struggle immensely to complete with older, still fit and far more established/mature/socially higher men.
The mentality of this book is just a projection of that vulnerability and inequality we feel. Consider this- who is more likely to even think that cooking a great meal will make their date happier? The chauvinist pig or a more sensitive individual?
@7 had it right, but I’d go further: interpreting the war metaphor as a call to rape is beyond absurd, it’s reprehensible. Any article (tongue-in-cheek or otherwise) that encourages readers to “RAPE THE SHIT OUT OF THAT SKANK” should not have made it past the editor’s desk. Shame on you, The Stranger.
I’m pretty much repeating @15. But:
A) Lindy, you are totally awesome. I love your mix of over the top directness and subtlety. I would give you as much fettucine alfredo and riesling as you wanted, merely for the honor of your hot smarty presence and wit!
B) Does this writer seriously think Poland didn’t fight during WW2, or is that just Lindy’s skillful indirect insult (as if this guy’s doucheyness wasn’t enough)? Because anyone who’s read Norman Davies knows Poland fought like crazy, from 39 to 44, and I’ll cut anyone who thinks otherwise. Oh yeah, and America partially owes its existence to 18th-19th century Polish exiles. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington look like morally flacid wankers compared to Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Kazmierz Pulaski.
(Historical hobbyhorse rant over. Please return to your regularly scheduled comments, and forgive me for trying to look smart for Lindy. Part A was the most important part of this comment.)
@ 1, 2, and 10- Wow people, have a sense of humor! I am female and find much of the book to be highly amusing. Of course it’s tongue-in-cheek, but it also offers some very good ideas, especially for those who don’t know how to cook or are intimidated by the idea. I fail to see the problem in having a bit of fun with a subject like this, especially if it encourages more guys to cook for their dates!
My husband cooks AND does laundry (some, but not all the time). All my female friends are drooling jealous.
God, lighten up! The book is CLEARLY meant in a fun, lighthearted way, to be enjoyed by people who really want to be fun and lighthearted about calling women easily manipulable sluts! Try and have a sense of humor, like those fine human beings do who somehow still need a cookbook to try and trick women into sleeping with them!
@22 They don’t actually like you, or like doing anything for you they just want to fuck you.
Congrats on finding an insincere, creepy sandwich-making “chef”.
@11 “Uh, why are you wasting my time reviewing a POS book? So I won’t accidentally read it and find out it’s a POS? Or is it so Ms. Lindy can waste my time reading the wonderful writings of Ms. Lindy? And what an easy, lazy topic to demonstrate the wonderfulness — stupid men. Gosh I’m impressed.”
I had a lot more in mind to say, but fuck off, outrage addict.
The only thing that separates this review from your review of her review is that she’s a better writer than you, and actually gets paid to snark. Your opinions are worthless.
What was so wrong with Win Her With Dinner: Food, Booze ∧ Tunes For Cooking Up The Perfect Evening (This book’s premise is based on the simple truth that women like to see a guy put forth a little effort) that Cook to Bang needed to be published? WHWD had the bonus of kickass music suggestions.
I LOVE YOU LINDY WEST
I think the writer is a douche bag. BUT — the first guy that ever cooked for me (home-made artichoke, roasted red pepper, and ricotta pizza) did get banged afterward. And I eventually married him. And yes, he still cooks.
Lindy, why did you review this book, let alone read it? It obviously is not aimed at you– It’s a book for the low-hanging fruit off the loser dude tree. You know, the guys who think Tarantino movies are too confusing & “arty.”
Talk about shooting fish in a barrel.
Here’s Spencer Walker’s answers to critics:
http://www.menuism.com/blog/interview-sp…
Here’s Spencer Walker’s response to his critics:
http://www.menuism.com/blog/interview-sp…
@24 because Lindy West is 100% serious?
It’s irony wrapped around irony! Time goes 1/10th the speed!
Or maybe its just a book by a sleezebag written for sleezebags. They have a whole community.
@23: I think it’s kind of tragic we have to be impressed with adults who clean up after themselves. If you can’t make food, do your own laundry, and in general clear your own messes — or refuse to because your mate can do it — you are a dysfunctional human being.
From an interview with Mr. Walker on some blog:
“And not all of the publicity is kind. I just had a heart-to-heart email exchange with a Pacific Northwest-based weekly writer who trashed CTB and then not-so-politely declined my offer to cook for her when I’m in town for a book tour this fall. She’ll never learn what a unique snowflake of sensitivity I am. Nor shall she nibble my nosh.”
Lindy, I think all of your audience would appreciate it if you printed these emails.
boo! someone wrote a book that’s getting attention because it’s making fun of itself! c’mon everyone! let’s TRASH IT!!!!!
Hipster Ho-bags and Cave babes? It sounds like this guy borrowed his writing style from Tucker Max [I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell].
And who says feminists have no fucking sense of humor!
Don’t all of you know that for every douche like walker there really is a skanky ho bag that will find his doucheness appealing and actually fuck him. Let’s not call this guy offensive and then turn a blind eye to the hoards of women who’s world spins around mtv and the E channel. Its a supply and demand world you know…
I don’t understand. But I love a good-natured skank. I always found that cooking a really good breakfast in the morning after banging is the way to get more banging. Especially the strung out hipster skanks.
Cooking-to-bang works — ask my boyfriend. But it has to come naturally; he just likes to cook. The author’s tab a/slot b approach is douchey to the extreme.
“You modern cavebitches are triflin’.” HAHAHAOHGOSH THIS IS MY NEW FAVOURITE THING.
Also everyone white-knighting this piece of sexist trash needs to check their male privilege at the door. (p.s. no one “deserves” to get laid. Ever)
How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
THAT’S NOT FUNNY
“You’ve also been called sexist and misogynistic. What do you say to that?
Slanderous poppycock! I took a feminist studies course in college.”
I bet he also says: “I’m not racist! I have a black coworker!”
Which he did just to get laid.
@39: If you find a hoard of women over a certain value, you are required by law to report it to the government. You may only keep it if no museums or TV studios make a fair purchase offer.
Erm… isn’t is possible he was saying “Be like Poland in WWII: never give up”? So his editor (or Lindy) missed a little comma that alters the interpretation of his sentence. Calm down already!
re 24: Lindy don’t ever lighten up and, re 30: keep shooting those fish in the barrels; you are so damned funny!