What food would you say is your specialty?
A blog inspired by Beautiful Men: The Chef
If you asked me this question a few years ago, I might’ve shrugged and said something safe—pasta, maybe. Or a salad that looks healthy but tastes like regret. But now, after writing Beautiful Men: The Chef, I’ve come to see food not as a skill, but as a language of the soul.
When I think of a “specialty,” I no longer think of what I’m good at cooking. I think of what I’m good at feeling through.
In the book, Kevin—the chef at the heart of the story—doesn’t just cook to feed others; he cooks to understand himself. Every dish he creates is a confession. The way he slices onions, slow and deliberate, feels like the way one learns to forgive. The way he folds butter into dough, patient and rhythmic, mirrors the way love asks to be tended—over time, with care, and without rushing the rise.
And Tammy, the woman who walks into his life from the other side of the screen, isn’t impressed by the precision of his plating. She’s drawn to the quiet ache behind his meals—the kind that says, I’ve been lonely too.
Writing their story changed how I see my own kitchen.
Now, when I cook, I pay attention to what my body is trying to say. If I’m restless, I make something that simmers—a stew, a curry—something that teaches me to wait. If I’m tender, I bake, because baking is faith in action. You measure, you mix, and then you let go. The oven does its part when you stop interfering.
That, I think, is my specialty now: listening.
Listening to what my body craves, to what my heart fears, to what the silence in the kitchen is whispering back. Because food isn’t just about taste—it’s about presence.
The act of cooking for someone you love, or even for yourself, is deeply spiritual. It’s the most intimate form of saying, I see you. You deserve warmth. You deserve nourishment.
When Kevin says in The Chef,
“Cooking was never about impressing anyone—it was about remembering I was still alive,”
he captures what I think every artist, every lover, every human eventually learns: that love, in all its forms, is an act of remembering.
So, what food would I say is my specialty?
Something simple. Something soulful. Something that reminds me of connection—like Kevin’s basil risotto, stirred slowly until creamy and forgiving, or Tammy’s favorite lemon tart, a little tart at first bite but soft at heart.
Because in the end, the food doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be honest.
And maybe that’s what Beautiful Men: The Chef is really about—learning that the recipe for love, healing, and fulfillment isn’t complicated. It’s about showing up as you are, stirring what you have, and trusting that it’s enough.
🥄 Experience the story. Taste the emotions.
Read Beautiful Men: The Chef — available now on Amazon.
#BeautifulMenSeries #TheChef #FoodIsLove #SoulfulReads #RomanticFiction #KayJay #ModernLove #Bookstagram #AmReading
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