Forget the tie and dinner at a steakhouse. David Manuel and Michael Spinks will spend Father's Day cooking for hundreds of people, their sons by their side.

Along with as many as 100 other men, they're competing for bragging rights in an annual charity food tasting. Yet there's more at stake than whether Manuel's Banana Ban-Chi will take the top prize this year, or Spinks' Pecan Pie Muffins will wow the judges.

KIMBERLY SMITH/AJC (ENLARGE)
David Manuel of Lilburn — making pancakes and bacon with sons Blake, 7, and Branden, 11 — took third place at last year's Real Men Cook for Charity tasting with his blender-busting banana smoothie.
BILLY SMITH II/AJC (ENLARGE)
Coleman Spinks, 12, spoons batter for Pecan Pie Muffins into a paper under the watchful eye of brother Cameron, 16, and dad Michael. All three will attend Sunday's tasting event.
Fireside (ENLARGE)
Real Men Cook, Fireside author Kofi Moyo.
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EVENT Real Men Cook for Charity. 3-6 p.m. Sunday. Georgia Freight Depot, 65 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Advance tickets: $20 adults, $10 ages 11 and under; at the door $25 adults, $15 children. Tickets available through Girls Inc. and the Grass Roots Institute, as well as EarWax Records, Turn It Up Records and Big Oomp's Records. 404-273-3227. Recipes: Matzo Brei  Hot Fruit Compote  Passover Apple, Nut and Honey Haroset  Passover Rolled Turkey Breast With Mushroom-Spinach Stuffing  Apple Matzo Kugel  Related: • More on food and drink • Search ajc.com's recipes

The two men signed up for repeat stints at Real Men Cook for Charity to teach their sons some lessons about giving back, being a good father and, of course, taking a turn in the kitchen. As more women have joined the work force in the past few decades, an increasing number of men have found their way to the kitchen, sharing dinner duties at home, watching cooking shows and discovering a creative outlet. Real Men Cook has boomed along with that trend.

Started 16 years ago to celebrate males who pitch in with their families and communities, and to counteract negative portrayals of African-American men, Real Men Cook has spread from Chicago to nine other cities, including Atlanta. This year, 1,000 guys (mostly African-American, but anyone may participate) are expected to prepare tastes of grilled chicken, sweet potato cake and the like for 30,000. Atlanta organizers expect up to 2,000.

This year's celebration in Atlanta is scheduled to include music, food and drink tastings, health screenings and appearances by Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks and his father, Pete Smith; Atlanta Falcons player Bryan Scott; U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.); and Tiy-E Muhammad, co-host of "Love, Peach and Sex" on radio station Hot 107.9, who is currently playing the professor on the second season of "The Real Gilligan's Island" on TBS.

"Our event is like the Million Man March, but with food," says Kofi Moyo, who started the event with his wife, Yvette, and spends much of the year traveling to promote cooking. "The spirit of the men is there, the camaraderie."

Moyo captured the stories of some of the participants, along with favorite recipes, in "Real Men Cook: Rites, Rituals and Recipes for Living" (Fireside, $22.95), published this spring.

"This is not just a taste of Chicago or Atlanta or whatever city it might be in," Moyo says. "It's centered around family values."

That's what keeps Manuel, of Lilburn, coming back — as well as the competition with other cooks. He took third place last year and wants to score higher Sunday.

"It's the best way to spend Father's Day — networking, having fun," Manuel says. "It's friendly competition, fellowshipping for men, celebrating the fact that they're fathers and they cook. It's really a positive gathering for a lot of men."

With his wife, Lori Manuel, and sons Blake and Branden, Manuel will prepare and serve a banana drink for the fourth year in a row. The boys will help slice the fruit and pass out samples.

"We're raising future husbands," Manuel says, "and we want them to know how to contribute."

Blake, at 7, is still more interested in the finished product than in wielding a spatula. His father's pancakes and bacon are a favorite; so is his mother's spaghetti. Branden, 11, likes to experiment in the kitchen, making fruit smoothies and preparing pancakes and bacon. Both like to sip the banana drink — prepared as an alcohol-free milkshake for them, with a rum-and-coffee-liqueur version for adults — with breakfast

"He's a little chef," Manuel says of Branden. "He helps my wife bake. Actually, he thinks his pancakes are better than mine."

At the Spinks home in Kennesaw, 12-year-old Coleman offers visitors a tray of peanut butter balls that he's just prepared and later reaches into the oven to check whether a batch of Pecan Pie Muffins are done. They'll be preparing that recipe, which they found in Southern Living several years ago, for Sunday's tasting.

Cameron, 16, and his dad are returning to Real Men Cook for a second time. They took second place, along with Michael's father, Ray Spinks, for their corn casserole in 2001. It's Coleman's first visit.

Like the Manuels, Michael and Sandra Spinks divide cooking duties. The Spinks boys are a bit older, so they're spending more time in the kitchen, moving beyond helping their father ace the neighborhood cookie swap to preparing some meals. Cameron's specialty is lasagna; Coleman likes to fix his favorites, macaroni and cheese and desserts. Mike, who travels as an account manager for Nextel, grills salmon and halibut.

"It's really in the past year or so they've figured out there are advantages in being able to cook," Spinks says. "We're a very active family. A lot of times it's catch-as-catch-can. "Unless you want to eat a peanut butter sandwich, you open a can of beans and make some chili."

The Manuels stay busy, too. David, who is community relations director for the Woodruff Arts Center, coaches a Little League team and football, and the boys also participate in swim teams. David and Lori make sure they get to cultural events, too, such as opening nights at the Alliance Theatre. Making sure the boys learn how to cook and take care of themselves, including laundry and other household tasks, is also part of their efforts to raise well-rounded sons.

Manuel's mother, aunt and grandmother taught him to cook, and he polished his creativity while bartending at Woodruff Arts Center events, as a student at the Atlanta College of Art. His grandmother's Sunday dinners, with collards, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato pie and other soul food favorites, inspire the way he cooks.

"She'd grab things out of the cabinet and season," Manuel says. "It was almost like she was conducting a symphony while cooking, the way she handled spices. I never measure everything. It's an art form."

Manuel's art background also influences how he presents food, like the precise way he turns grilled food to guard against overbrowning, and the pineapples and paper umbrellas he'll use to set a tropical theme for his table at Real Men Cook. The next challenge: personalizing the large, light-filled kitchen in the family's new Lilburn home.

Spinks learned to cook from his mother and his father, a career military officer who used kitchen time as a stress reliever. He polished his skills during six years in Alaska, where guys lined up for wok and grill duels and fish became a specialty.

The Spinkses have participated in races to raise funds for cancer research and worked as a family with several charities. Volunteering for Real Men Cook is a good way to be involved, Spinks says — not to mention the joys of sampling all the food from other cooks. With dozens more men cooking this year than their first visit, Michael, Cameron and Coleman figure they'll have to split up to try everything.

Manuel is going to retire the Banana Ban-Chi after this year and prepare food, joking that he wants to prove to people that he can cook. For now, though, he's coaching Branden and Blake on handing out samples, and lining up the blenders — at least two, and maybe three, because inevitably one overheats.

"It's a good way for me to spend Father's Day," Manuel says, "getting my kids involved."