As Arnold Schwarzenegger memorably learned in Ivan Reitman’s Kindergarten Cop (1990), “Boys have and penis, [but] girls have a vagina.” Throughout human history, various thinkers (including Jews, Christians, Muslims, the Founding Fathers, Sigmund Freud, the Rolling Stones, Valerie Solanas, Susan Sontag, and Dr. Dre) have gone to great lengths to differentiate between penis-havers (men) and vagina-havers (women) in their ideologies and art. Would one expect the kitchen to be any different?

To further unravel the mysterious role gender plays in food preparation, New York’s Astor Center is hosting a roundtable discussion featuring Food & Wine’s editor-in-chief, a James Beard outstanding chef, and other members of the Big Apple’s foodie cognoscenti. A heady discussion of perceived truths about the ways “the fellaz” handle open flames, ingredients, recipes, plating, customer service, heat lamps, deep fryers, and cutting boards differently than “the ladeez” will follow a blind taste-test in which panel members will attempt to guess the gender of participating chefs by tasting their gustatory creations. Sound fun? It only costs $35, or much less than four tickets to see Terminator: Salvation. Since one female local chef was recently referred to as “bitchy” by a commenter on this blog when everyone knows that the vast majority of male chefs in this world are not held accountable for being egomaniacal, overbearing assholes, I think that we would all benefit from said discussion – were we in New York on June 8th with $35 to spare, and had we not already seen Terminator: Salvation.