Semi-Homemade Erotic Romance, with Smart Bitch Sarah

Back when I was learning to cook, I had an absolute monster file of shortcut recipes for The Poor Student Cook (that would be me). Honestly, I look back, and I don’t know how Hubby and I survived my cooking, which wasn’t so much about actual culinary skill but about embracing the mathematical answer to the question, “How much sodium can one person ingest in one meal?”

Slather chicken with condensed soup? Oh yeah. Slather more chicken with other processed goop? Yup. Save extra goop to put on the Lipton side, which consisted of noodles and sodium? Yeah. I’m embarrassed.

But back before I knew better, that was cooking. And I was so proud to be in my kitchen, my apartment, mine mine mine, that I cooked and cooked and cooked… using processed ingredients and all kinds of narst.

Little did I know, I could have been famous. Do you know Sandra Lee? Creator of the “Semi-Homemade” empire, which those who dislike her call “Semi-Ho?” Her entire schtick is to create “semi-homemade” meals using prepared ingredients that have been scooped, reconstituted, seasoned, and beaten into a shadow of their former sodium-laden selves. The hallmarks of her show are her habit of tilting forward Giada-style into the camera boobs-first, the massive, absolutely happy-hour-worthy cocktail pitcher she’ll make in every episode, and the “tablescape,” which looks like Michael’s Crafts and the Rag Shop did the hunky chunky together and in their moment of passion burst into flame and exploded, kind of like the couple at the end of Like Water For chocolate only much more explodey, and with a mother ton of tschotskes.

There’s a Sandra Lee drinking game, for heaven’s sake. Have a look at Sandra’s alcohol-drenched Christmas tree. From scooping out pre-made pumpkin pies to pouring 90% of a bottle of vodka in a pitcher and splashing it with a tablespoon of Sprite. If you really feel like working out your abs, find Heather Osborn and ask her about Sandra Lee. Lee is hilarious and horrific: hilarious because it cannot possibly be real – and horrific because, oh, yes, it is.

And (alert! Abrupt sort-of change in topic!) that’s kind of how I feel about a lot of the erotic romance on the market right now. I mentioned to Jane recently that the fallout of her turning me on to ebooks and my purchase of the Kindle-ade is that I’m a lot less patient as a reader. Used to be if I was trapped on the bus with one book, and I didn’t like it, I’d keep going because, well, I was trapped on the bus. But with the Kindle-Ade, if I don’t like something, click, click, there’s about fourteen thousand something-else’s I can try. There’s a much smaller window of opportunity to grab me when I know I’ve got a buffet of other books waiting in my hands.

Erotic romance is a tough one with me. This is not because I don’t like explicit sex, but because there are times when the construction of the erotic romance reads like someone took an average plot and brought it over to the Semi-Homemade set for some processed doctoring. Erotic romance, Semi-Homemade style, is a perfectly fine basic narrative, with sodium-heavy, tasteless, partially hydrogenated sex stuffed into every possible orifice, coupled with impossible paranormal backstories that allow any number of coy bestiality hints or what have you.

Look at it like this: imagine your basic contemporary plot. It’s a store bought angel food cake (Sandra Lee LOVES those) and you need to doctor it up for the erotic romance party that’s coming over to your house to gawk and chatter at the Kama Sutra tablescape you constructed with coathangers, some Chinese silk remnants, those web-and-flower-sparkle slippers that everyone wore two years ago, a peace lily, and a bowling ball. What can you do with your angel-food cake plot to make it over-the-top Erotic Romance, the semi-homemade way? Add the following:

Name Brands:

Always stuff as many named brands as possible into your erotic romance. Not only does it show you did your research, but it lends that touch of realism that just can’t be faked. Sure, your hero may have a fourteen foot man-hose, and the heroine might like triple-double penetration (that’s six dudes, two holes) and you’re wondering how that might be choreographed, but one mention of Folger’s crystals and your reader will be transported into a reality that is too, too real, and that makes the absolutely-anatomically-impossible sex that much more possible. And thus, more hotter.

Manwich:

ManwichThis is a two-part Semi-Homemade improvement. Dump two cans of Manwich on your angel-food cake plot. First, always have a threesome, or a manwich, wherein the heroine gets smushed between two men. It doesn’t matter who the other dude is. He might be an ancillary character. He might be some guy who is glued to the wall in a priapic state who exists merely for the manwich purposes. He might not be a he—he might be a pole in the ground. Doesn’t matter. Not only does the heroine need to take it in the two-hole for it to cross the border into erotic romance, she needs a double-stuffing for that erotic romance to float the boats of today’s discerning crowd.

What, angel food cake and Manwich don’t really go together? Tough. We need manwiches and threesomes galore.

And speaking of men, there’s part two of the Manwhich requirement. If your hero can muse to himself as much as possible using the word “Man,” it adds that certain touch of quality to your erotic romance. Nothing says “man who thinks with his dick” than constant use of the word “man” itself. From Man, her ass was tight inside her jeans, so tight he wondered if he’d be able to pull them off or would he have to get the shoehorn he kept hidden in the bedside table as a backup amorous device? to Man, her boobs jiggle a lot, the erotic romance hero must constantly self-identify to remind himself that he is, in fact, so manfully manly and manhoodly-man-man. Man.

Scent:

Why do all these scents have penis-shaped bottles?Your Brand-name Manwich angel food cake erotic romance plot needs scent. All these alpha predatory male heroes, man, are sniffing up her skirt, scenting her essence, and generally remarking on the whiff eau heroine, man. This is particularly true for paranormals, because it’s not an erotic paranormal romance unless the animal-esque hero ruminates upon the smell of her arousal at least three or four times. Get it? He’s part-animal, that sexy man-beast, and his sense of smell is fourteen thousand times more sensitive than everyone else’s, and so you have no secrets every time you’re hot to trot. There’s nothing more erotic than being turned on and having the dude who turned you on inform you that he could tell each and every time you were turned on in the past four years since you moved into the apartment next door, and what is it about QVC that gets your love honey flowing, anyway? Is it the Quacker Factory?

Love’s Baby Soft:

Why do all these scents have penis-shaped bottles?After you’ve covered your angel food cake plot with Manwich, threesomes, some additional scent, and enough name brand references to choke a shopaholic, there’s just one more thing you need to make a Semi-Homemade Erotic Romance: “baby.”

Ever notice that moments after the erotic romance hero meets his erotic romance heroine, and he’s figured out that between that page and the end of the book he’s gonna get a loooootta tail, he starts calling her “Baby?” It’s part of that whole alpha-male protection thing, and part of the sexy treatment that makes any Semi-Homemade erotic romance such a total treat to read. If he’s not remarking to himself, man, he’s calling the newly-met heroine “Baby,” regardless of whether she’s older than he is, or whether she might even like the reduction of power inherent in a diminutive nickname. Maybe she has a name, but after she meets him, it’s “Baby.” And you can bet your sweet bippy he’ll be putting baby in the corner, over the banister, in the back yard, up the wall, in the shower, and on the kitchen table.

Now that you’ve put your personal Semi-Homemade touch on a basic romance plot, and used 30% fresh ingredients to make that narrative your own, it’s time to shop it around for sale. This is when the Kama Sutra/Bowling League tablescape will come (ha!) in handy: invite all the erotic romance editors whose names you can find online over to your house for a Semi-Homemade erotic romance party.

But don’t forget the cocktails that are at least 85% alcohol. They’ll need at least three.

Remember, keep it simple, keep it smelly, keep it sexy, but always keep it Semi-Homemade Erotic Romance.

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