According to my father a woman is not a woman unless she knows how to cook. And up until recently I've been certifiably un-woman. With smallish boobs, a boyish haircut normally worn by members of little league, and culinary experience amounting to several successful bowls of Frosted Mini Wheats, I could easily pass for a member of the Vienna Boys Choir.

So when The Roommate and I invited friends over for "dinner" on Saturday, you could say we had a little situation on our hands, a crossroads as it were. We could order Chinese take-out and encourage my pseudo-womanism, or we could cook an actual meal and transform me into marriage material. I hope you're reading this, Dad.

We decided to cook understanding fully that this meal would require actual cooking. And to complicate matters further, we decided to cook a turkey, setting ourselves up for that scene in every sit-com where someone inevitably says, "You're supposed to thaw the turkey before you cook it," right before the oven blows up.

Five hours after sticking my hand up the frozen ass of a dead bird and 16 calls to my mother later � who, might I point out, found it wickedly pleasurable when I discovered the turkey giblets and passed out face first into a bowl of minced garlic � we had ourselves an astounding display of foodstuffs with the carbohydrate voltage of a nuclear reactor. Southern women instinctually know to fry everything in butter, and I fried everything in butter and then added more butter.

Our guests enjoyed the meal enough to unbutton their pants and continue eating. Their 16 month old son liked it enough that he began dancing and pumping his arm like a Quaker churning butter, after which he promptly transferred our CD collection from its proper shelving into small piles throughout the apartment. This morning I found the entire Bj�rk discography behind the toilet.

Pleased with the success of our project, The Roommate and I spent the next four hours cleaning what once used to be our kitchen. Mashed potatoes clinging to the ceiling, gravy splattered in dollops across the cereal boxes on top of the refrigerator, stuffing in my pants: the first official night of my womanhood.