Supersoaper; yes, I meant your recipe by the "it" and Thank you, I will check "it" out! I am curious to see if mine has anything in common with yours!
I am sure that your wife, friends and family all know you are a man. And you are absolutely correct about being comfortable in what you are doing and not caring what others think. You are also correct in the assumption that it wouldn't matter what you did, as I too doubt that anyone would dare express negative thoughts in person, size often matters a LOT! As for the dress, well.....my Son dresses up many Halloweens as a female. While his close, very close, friends may have tease him a bit, nobody else ever dared too (to his face or where it would get back to him. And we lived in a tiny town where the whole town knew you had tea instead of coffee with breakfast before you left for work!) He went to college on a FB scholarship, he was a linebacker too. So I totally get what you mean, and I am sure you are more intimidating than he ever was (since you played professionally)!
And, as for Grandpa, his comments are just a part of his generation and, forgive me this next statement, no disrespect intended )my kids are 1/2 Italian), the Italian machismo. And I am sure, in part, he just enjoys razzing you, especially since you could drop that wheelchair at anytime.
Grandpas can be that way. If you can make him smile or laugh, even if its at you, that's truly a wonderful thing. Some of my best times with my Gramps was when he was razzing me or my boys. He's been gone a while, but we still miss him terribly.
Anyway, I still feel that a lot of men might have a problem "outing" their typically female hobby/business, so it still stands; thank you men of the soap world for daring to be men in a soap world and sharing that with us!