Today is National Men Make Dinner Day
🍳 National Men Make Dinner Day (November 7)
It began as a lighthearted holiday — a once-a-year nudge for men to put down the remote, pick up a spatula, and prove they could manage more than the grill. But National Men Make Dinner Day, first cooked up in the early 2000s, lands a little differently depending on who you ask. For plenty of men, it’s not a novelty — it’s just Thursday. They’ve been making breakfast, packing lunches, and plating full dinners long before anyone thought to declare it a hashtag.
The real cooks — the quiet ones who do it daily — know that a good meal is an act of care, not choreography. Some of us spent decades behind the stove while partners took the credit or barely noticed the work.
TRUE STORY: I once hosted a five-course Christmas dinner, with wine pairings, for my wife’s closest friends — one of many, many special meals I made through the years — and she later dismissed as “oh, you did that once.” The truth is, there were hundreds of “once’s.” Holiday turkeys, cabin brunches, garden party-style dinners for friends, breakfasts that could feed royalty, fun culinary experiments and regular “treats” for the wife (now ex-wife). Hell, one fall, when I devised my world-class smoked salmon recipe, I practically slept outside in the garage next to my smoker.
I didn’t do any of this for the applause. Rather, I did it for the pure satisfaction of seeing people fed and happy. That’s love in its most practical form — daily, deliberate, often thankless…and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
So today, skip the gimmick. Make dinner because it centers you. Because the sound of a pan sizzling and a glass of wine breathing reminds you that craft and care still matter. For those who’ve been doing it all along, every day is Men Make Dinner Day. The rest can catch up later. 🔥🍷✨
Fun fact: The holiday was founded by Canadian radio host Sandy Sharkey as a tongue-in-cheek campaign — but it’s become a reminder that the kitchen has no gender, only heart.