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TMI Tuesday – Food of Love
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One of the best books I’ve read in recent months is Laura Lee Gurhke’s And Then He Kissed Her. I was thinking about it again just the other day (and if I’m thinking about it two months after I read it, it must be a great book!) and it has at least two marvelous scenes that involve food. One is a seduction scene, where the hero eats a chocolate from his lady’s hand (and it is finger-lickin’ good, let me tell you!) and the other scene takes place after they’ve been lovers for a while, and they can’t decide between having dinner and making love, so they decide to multi-task.
All this got me thinking about food and sex and how deliciously well they go together. The wicked indulgence, the added senses of touch and smell and taste …. ever since Eve handed Adam that apple, it seems these two basic human appetites have been intertwined. I have more theories, but I’d rather hear yours first.
So, why do you think food and sex go so well together? Or maybe you don’t think so – perhaps you find it all just a bit too sticky?
Any favorite scenes from published novels? Have you written any tasty tidbits in your own books? And it wouldn’t be TMI Tuesday if I didn’t invite you to share your own favorite toppings. *evil grin*
June 5th, 2007 at 5:24 am · Link
Sorry. My most risque items were ice cubes when it was really hot(and not just the weather). I have to say I’m a little too much of a neat freak to mix food with fun. I don’t like watching people chew or listening to crunching, either. I’m just Miss Priss today, aren’t I?
June 5th, 2007 at 5:40 am · Link
Then Maggie I must be prissy too. Actually food during sex really never appealed or occurred to me to be something I ever had the urge to try or do. But the ideal of partaking in a delicious sundae on a hot night in the summer does have its appeal. (As long as I make sure to put the dirty bowl in the kitchen before I go to sleep)
June 5th, 2007 at 6:34 am · Link
Yeah, I’m not too excited by the idea of cream/honey/chocolate all over the bedsheets, either. Nothing like the prospect of increased housework to kill the mood. Like sex on the beach, it’s something that works better in fiction than in RL, I’m thinking.
But I still find food and eating to be very sensual and seductive, and I love to read those scenes. The preparation of food, IMO, can be especially intimate. A man preparing food – ooh. Yum. Too bad Mr. Dare can’t toast a bagel without nearly burning down the house.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:40 am · Link
I haven’t written it yet but I’m lucky in that my hero in my WIP is a chef. That is going to make for some really good stuff. At least I hope so.
When I think of food and sex I think 9 1/2 weeks but I also think of that book, Tessa. Gosh, that was so well done. I can’t think of any personal food experiences in this area but I ain’t dead yet so there’s hope.
And I do believe if you keep the activities to the kitchen, you don’t have to worry about washing the sheets. I have heard that honey dries and it ain’t pretty so I’m not going there. If can’t be good when a hot night turns into a brazillian wax. *w*
June 5th, 2007 at 7:00 am · Link
Sigh. Oh for the days of the Honey Bear.
Alice
June 5th, 2007 at 8:11 am · Link
I’m prissy too, so I prefer food with sexual tension as opposed to with actual sex. LLG is a master – there’s that wonderful picnic scene in The Marriage Bed that’s all sexual tension & blackberry jam. Mmm. And there’s JoBev’s My Lady Notorious when they’re eating the biscuits (or whatever is was. Lots of food & sex in that one). And the dessert scene in GOTH!
June 5th, 2007 at 10:03 am · Link
LOL, Terri! I wonder if you and Alice crossed posts. No comments on the Brazilian wax phenomenon, AA? 😉 And your chef hero is delish!
Lindsey – that’s funny you should bring up Lucy’s affinity for dessert! I hadn’t even thought of it, but yeah – I really dig it when guys enjoy watching women eat. I suppose it’s a fantasy of mine that all that cheesecake-scarfing I do is a huge turn-on to someone!
Jenny Crusie’s characters eat Oreos and donuts together and whatnot. Other books/authors you can think of?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:33 am · Link
Sticky stuff in bed? That’s what they invented plastic sheets for. [evil grin]
Just saying. . .
Sex and food scenes in published romances: I could name a bunch off the top of my head. Susan Johnson seemed to start it way back in the late 70s with her infamous plum at the “gates of paradise” scene in LOVESTORM. The use of jam in Thea Devine’s ANGEL EYES. Grapes in Bertrice Small’s THE HELLION. The raspberry scene in Lisa Kleypas’s SUDDENLY YOU.
But I found all of them not very sexy. I thought the way food was used to awaken the senses in AND THEN HE KISSED HER and MY LADY NOTORIOUS was hella lot sexier. There is a difference between “sensuous” and “sensual”. I prefer sensuous writing, i.e. encompassing and appealing to all 5 senses.
and Tessa, AOL is acting wonky today so I can’;t email. Dont think I am ignoring you.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:26 pm · Link
I’m not a big fan of food in the bedroom either. My mind just goes to all the wrong places.
Food other places, food being sensual, I can get behind that, but not between the sheets, please.
Though, I will confess this much: sushi, followed by ice cream, followed by long nights. *nod*
June 5th, 2007 at 3:09 pm · Link
Well, I love the food scene in Tom Jones. And not to suck up, but I like the first dinner scene at Jeremy’s in GOTH even better. Really, I do.
June 5th, 2007 at 4:06 pm · Link
Suzanne Brockmann did wonderful things for Hershey’s chocolate syrup, it escapes me which book it was though…The Defiant Hero, perhaps?
My hero Alec does some interesting maneuvering with an eclaire, but it may get cut yet.
Yummy topic Tessa!
June 5th, 2007 at 7:26 pm · Link
Sara! It’s so good to ‘see’ you around. So sushi and ice cream does it for you, hmm? I’m rather fond of both of those things, myself – although in the same sentence they make me think twice…
seton – I’m thinking I need to read LOVESTORM. But that’s an excellent point, sensual vs. sensuous. in ATHKH, it’s so true that it’s much more than a sexual awakening.
India, your $5 is in the mail. If you can find a way to say GOTH is better than P&P, I’ll make it $20.
Kelly K – Ummmmm, “interesting maneuvering with an eclair” is conjuring all sorts of images in my mind. Some of them a bit disturbing. *g*
June 6th, 2007 at 9:06 am · Link
ummmmm….NOT like that! I certainly never considered that that sounded quite so ick!LOL!
June 6th, 2007 at 11:23 am · Link
Yuck. . .No cracker crumbs (or stick whipped cream/chocolate, etc) in my bed. . .thank you very much!
June 6th, 2007 at 1:21 pm · Link
I love food and sex in books. Too much extra laundry in real life.
My heroine is a chef and, yes, they do indulge but not in the restaurant’s kitchen because that would be against OSHA rules. I guess my own feelings does cross over into my writing!
‘La Cucina’ is also very hot. It features a well rounded heroine who cooks like a goddess and the Englishman she cooks for. Very hot. I don’t have it in front of me, so I can’t tell you who the author is.
Naked sushi is very hot now. Big ‘ew’ for me whether or not a Brizillian factors in or not. Um, was that TMI?
June 6th, 2007 at 11:13 pm · Link
Can’t believe no one mentioned the berry scene in Lisa Kleypas’ Suddenly You. That one’s a CLASSIC. I also like the baking scene in Gaelen Foley’s One Night of Sin – yum-me.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:39 am · Link
This reminded me of that Seinfield episode in which George Constanza mixed sex with food. Then he couldn’t eat anything without getting all flushed. *lol*
June 7th, 2007 at 3:49 pm · Link
Brazilian wax? Shudder.
I know what you mean about a man enjoying the way you eat. Mr. Al and I had a rather heated moment over a lobster in a restaurant once. The funny thing is that he doesn’t like lobster.
Alice