Tough Guys Don't Dice: A Cookbook for Men Who Can't Cook

``Gone are the days when Daddy in the kitchen evoked a cutesy image of the inept American male . . . making a royal mess as he tried to boil water,'' insists Thorson. ``My wife and I split up the work around the house some years back,'' and much of the cooking fell to him. Now a seasoned amateur, this University of Nebraska professor of gerontology, and wisecracking good old boy, has written not ``your regular cookbook, where they assume you know how to separate egg yolks from the whites.'' Instead, ``We'll focus on how to cook, and I'll throw in some tricks I've picked up over the years.'' Readers will not find myriad elegant recipes. The book is divided into five simple chapters: breakfast (``You already know how to make the toast,'' he quips); lunch; ``little stuff'' like deviled eggs; dinner (Rice-a-Roni and Minute Rice are championed); and dessert (``Remember Bisquick?''). A gung ho kitchen minimalist, at times clodhopping and more than a little gross (``all of the old ladies in our church kept a spare copy of funeral casserole in the freezer, ready to pounce if someone died''), Thorson makes primitive cookery sound like fun. (Aug.)