Anne Geddes and Kerri Larken

Dobson & McEwan, $30

LIKE anything, cooking is 90 per cent mental effort, and a lack of form is not usually a reflection of a lack of talent, but rather a symptom of low confidence.

It seems most blokes are willing to turn their hand to more than a singed snag or a burnt bit of bread from the toaster, but just don't have the know-how to try more.

Two Newcastle women are trying to change that and get in the heads of Australian men to give them a pump-up in the culinary arts.

Anne Geddes and Kerri Larken take even the most clueless culinary cobber from the basics, such as boiling an egg and frying a steak, to the more complex procedures such as a hearty lasagne.

Dude Where's the Food? offers words of encouragement as well, and every bloke knows keeping up the chatter breeds confidence.

The production values are low, with photographs varying in quality, and between black and white and colour, but all this helps to shed the pretentiousness of so many cookbooks on the shelves.

There is less food-porn and more realism, avoiding that sinking feeling of failure when one's own effort looks more like a Pro Hart on a plate than the Picasso on the page.

The basics taught in the book can be turned to a number of dishes, and once the seed is planted most men will take pride in their culinary inventions.

As every woman knows, teach a man to cook and he will eat forever. Cook him a meal and you'll never get him off the couch.