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Ladies, if you have a man that likes to cook, hold onto him and make sure you encourage his interest! Look out for great gifts help him further this interest but remember that when it comes to cooking, men and women are very different creatures.

Take, my man; he loves to cook but he'll take a look in the refrigerator and make something up. Men tend to be less reliant on cookbooks than women; they have a more relaxed attitude and pay less attention to the fine print. Maybe its because we girls often get our first cooking experience when baking with our mother or grandmother and we are taught that the fine art of baking and pastry making requires strict adherence to weights and measures in order to work?

No, men prefer to make it up as they go along so cookbooks perhaps aren't the way to go.

Men, more than women tend to, like gadgets and gizmos; a little blow torch for caramelising desserts is a great gift for a man. or how about an electric carving knife or hand-held liquidiser. Anything that looks like a DIY tool may be a very good choice.

A sushi making kit, too, is a great gift for men - it's something about the precision and the construction of the rolls that appeals to men.

And on the macho theme, what about barbecues? Even the man who rarely enters the kitchen except to take a beer out of the fridge fancies himself as Jamie Oliver or Anthony Bourdain when a barbecue is mentioned. New barbecue tools or specialty wood chips to lend a new flavour to your barbecued food is a great idea. Another popular choice is hot chilli sauce - my partner collects them and any birthday is incomplete without a new addition to the collection. Try to pick them up when holidaying abroad as the chilli-head is always appreciative of one he hasn't encountered before.

Then, of course, there are the gifts that are perfect for any cook; a good knife or set of knives is a great gift but there are so many kinds around that what suits me, may not suit you. For the person who cooks a lot, knives can be quite personal so try to find something less contentious.

Instead, why not give a good olive oil or wine vinegar? It's something that is unlikely to get pushed to the back of a cupboard and forgotten and can be appreciated more than once, unlike a wine.

Whatever you give, I am sure that any well-considered gift is sure to be a hit.

Learn more about this author, Fiona Thompson.
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