New York Post senior reporter Stephanie Smith, has made headlines over her food blog which people have criticised and deemed sexist.
Why?
Well, unlike traditional food blogs, this particular one has an absurd back story to it like no other – Smith’s boyfriend demands sandwiches. So much so that she set the blog up to document her sandwich making.
But it’s more than that. Her other half set her a ridiculous challenge, if his girlfriend makes him 300 sandwiches, he’ll propose to her.
The couple have been together more than a year, and Smith remarks that “things are fairly serious.”
Here’s how the preposterous idea for the blog began:
“Make me a sandwich.”
“That’s what my boyfriend, E, asks without fail every morning. Not “babe, where are my keys?” Not, “honey, where are my socks?” And no, not even, “c’mon, just the tip?”
She continues:
“Honey, this is the best sandwich ever!” he exclaimed in between bites so rapid in succession, the sandwich was gone in minutes. And then, he dropped a bomb me: “You’re, like, 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring.”
“That was it—a proposal hinged on me making him sandwiches.
“Sandwiches meant more to him than nice gifts, regular sex or any other incentive I could use to get him closer to putting a ring on it. I’m not sure how 300 became the magic number. Perhaps because it would take me about a year to make that many sandwiches, if I produced one Monday through Friday. That seemed like a long enough time in the future to seem far way. It also seemed like a lofty enough goal, out of easy reach, to set without complete confidence that I would accomplish it.
“And so, I got cooking.”
Though there are many who see this as sexist, Smith has said that she doesn’t believe it is.
“Some say I’m just desperate to get engaged” she writes.
“Hardly. I don’t have to be. E didn’t say “cook me 300 sandwiches or I’m leaving you!” He gave me a challenge—a dare, to some degree—and the type-A, Tracy Flick side of me can’t stand being challenged. I will prove to him and the rest of the world I can make the 300 sandwiches.”
And what’s her boyfriend’s feeling on the situation? Well:
“You women read all these magazines to get advice on how to keep a man, and it’s so easy,” he says.
“We’re not complex. Just do something nice for us. Like make a sandwich.”
To date, Smith has made and blogged about 177 sandwiches on her blog titled “300sandwiches.com”
“When I reach my 300th sandwich, I’ll have an arsenal of meals I can use for dinner, parties, picnics, breakfast and desserts.”says Stephanie.
“And barring any major fights or infidelities, E and I will likely go all the way, buy that country house and have babies, so I’ll need to know how to cook a variety of meals for my kids and house guests anyway. You know the old saying–the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
