Want to get your eager hands on an ARC of Sherry Thomas’ August release Delicious? You do? Really?
Cool! We have 5 to give away, and your task, should you choose to accept it, is to tell us, what food do you love SO much that, if it was brought to you in the next little while, you’d be so happy you’d give a righteous sexing to the bringer? To put it more simply, what food do you love such that you’d happily bang whomever brought it to you?
Sherry Thomas, bringer of the ARCs, says that she’d willingly give up some mighty lovin’ for whomever can gift her with savory agar-agar jelly salad:
I know it sounds weird, but the agar-agar jelly is a thing of beauty, translucent and shivery, with just a tinge of the sea to the taste of it. You slice it into bite-size pieces, and pour on a dressing of pounded garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, and cilantro leaves and it’s heaven. I never see it anywhere in the States and my attempts at making my own from agar agar have all been disastrous. So it’s my sexiest food because I’ll sex anyone who brings me a bowl. And I’m talking no-holds barred sexxoring here. Okay, no bestiality. And nothing that will hurt. But other than that,no holds barred!
Me? What food will bring on the amorous response from yours truly? I admit, I’m a sucker for a specific chewy chocolate ginger molasses cookie, so if someone showed up with a plateful, some icing drizzled on each one, and a guarantee that said cookies would not be introduced to my arse in a different form (namely: as fat), I am releasing myself from responsibility for my actions.
So, what about you? I love a good frisky contest. Bring it on! What is your Food That Would Make You Wanna Sex The Bringer? Sherry will pick the winners, three by Food Sexy talk and two by random integers, and we’ll send out ARCs. You have, as usual, 24 hours to being in the food that makes you wanna get funky.
Oh, man, that’s definitely Gertrude Hawk’s white chocolate snowmen with dark chocolate truffle filling. It’s a local company (they only have stores in the NY/NJ/PA area) and obviously they only sell them in the winter, and that’s if you’re lucky because some seasons I can’t even find them. I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate in pretty much any form but this one. Hand me a box of those and my complete lack of upper body strength will disappear as I gleefully rip the pants right off you.
I would have to say tuna carpaccio. Mmm. I’m salivating by the mere thought of it.
Seeing that the tuna, clever as they are, vastly prefer to swim merrily along in somewhat milder climates than what we may offer way up north, it’s quite hard to get my greedy little hands on really fresh, good, yummy tuna here in Norway. Thus, if some bloke would bring me a nice, good portion of tuna carpaccio, I would eat it slowly of his naked body – not using before-mentioned greedy little hands (they are not so little either, really. Greedy big hands. Yeah.) Unfortunately for the bringer, chances are that I would become so caught up in the whole stuffing-my-face-with-tuna-part of the deal that I would forget all about the poor naked guy until I was too full to do anything but lie very still in a fetal position until I’d managed to digest some of the tuna deliciousness. But I would see to his reward eventually. Promise.
It probably makes me incredibly strange, but I have a “so good I’ll lick it off someone” standard. Forget chocolate, forget whipped cream. If a guy showed up with a bottle of the maple dipping sauce from Rare Bar & Grill on NYC’s east side, I’d positively expire with joy. I was also notorious for having ecstatic fits over the sweet barbecue sauce from a restaurant in Chelsea that no longer exists. There’s just something about a good sauce that has a sweet kick to it that I just love.
I would probably drop all clothes and inhibitions for a palm leaf with a serving of arhar daal, accompanied by a little plain basmati rice and one naan with ghee… I haven’t had any since I’ve returned from India and I miss it so much I could cry. (or shag anyone who brings it ‘round my door.
I’m cheap and easy. A good, greasy cheese pizza, thin crust. You would be amazed how hard it is to get good pizza in Maine. I don’t even need the beer, but a cold Corona would be nice.
This is a tough one, but I’ll do plenty for a really excellent hot lobster roll. No celery, no mayo, just succulent chunks of warm fresh lobster dripping with butter on a nicely crisped hot dog roll. Mmmm. Can you tell I’m a New Englander through and through?
I respect your choices, but the aftertaste of tuna is such that it will never, in my mind, be even remotely sexy. It smells like five-year-old kids.
Uncooked brownie mix – sans egg – and a glass of milk. I adore brownie mix, and now that I think about it, every way and place I like to eat it is also a doozy of a spectator sport. Spoiling myself by eating it in the bathtub while I read a good book (yes, that kind of “good”). Taking a big tablespoon and licking it like a popsicle. Anybody who brought me my brownie mix would be welcome to stay for the show, and then, who knows? Maybe I’d find something else big to cover with brownie mix and lick like a popsicle!
I really don’t think there is any food that I would give it up for…either I hold sex to a higher a standard, or more likely – I haven’t been lucky enough to experience such ecstatic gustatory experiences as some of the other bitches. Currently struggling to lose the weight from baby #2 (2 months as of today! -27lbs so far…and way too many still to go) I’d have to agree with Sarah, if someone delivered me something in a combination of chocolate, cherries, and cheesecake and told me that eating it would remove, rather than add, more junk to my trunk…well, that would certainly be call for me to give the bringer of such a magic gift all the booty he wanted.
Precious, my 5 year old most certainly does not smell like tuna…sticky eggo waffles? Yes. But tuna, uh-uh.
A spinach salad with ripe peaches, warm goat cheese, and a balsamic reduction.
There is nothing better than warm goat cheese melting in your mouth.
…
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to make this for dinner now.
Risotto a la quattro formagio. Four cheese risotto. Such a smooth and creamy flavor, but with just a tiny bit of a tang (from the Asiago cheese, I think). Went down like heaven. Oh, but then there’s the mushroom risotto. Gawd that was good, too.
Screw it, can I pick a blanket catergory? Risotto in general?
I haven’t had any since I left Italy, a year and a half ago. I live in NC and in this part of the state—well, let’s just say someone at my office recently asked me what risotto *was*. A pasta or a rice, or what. My waistline probably thanks me for not having any but my taste buds. . . my taste buds would have me throw down with anyone who brought a steaming, heaping plate of it.
I would drop everything (!) for a really good, authentic Cornish pasty. Flaky pastry. Succulent meat. Tender veggies. With brown gravy. Man, I’m going into overdrive just thinking about it. I’ve tried to make them myself but they’d be put to better use as doorstops.
Ribs. Real American BBQ ribs. I haven’t had it since I moved to Japan.
I’m pretty easy, too: Haagen Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream. In fact I’d pretty much sex up whoever the genius was who decided that chocolate and peanut butter belong together.
Filet mignon from Commander’s Palace in New Orleans (with whatever sauce they had on top. It was something gourmet and I can’t remember it.) I’m a carnivore and a sucker for a perfect cut of meat, cooked to just the right degree of doneness, and served with a sauce that compliments it to a T.
Chicken Mole, good Chicken Mole that is. Yumm- it’s my favorite dish in the whole world and I’d jump on the person who could bring it to me or prepare it correctly.
I am a goner for chewy, nutty, chocolate chips extra chocolate brownies. I seriously would eat a whole plate of those if I could.
I haven’t had sex in 6 years.
someone could bring me a tic -tac and he wouldn’t know what hit him LOL
I haven’t had sushi since I left California a year ago. (I’ve been told it’s possible to get good sushi here, but on my grad student budget it’s right out.) If someone brought me a nice plate of the good stuff he could pretty much have anything he wanted in return.
If sushi was too hard to transport I’d also give it up for the gooey chocolate bites from a bakery in LA. They’re like balls of slightly undercooked brownies rolled in confectioner’s sugar. So fabulous I can’t even tell you.
Salmon. In pretty much any form but especially cold smoked or fresh salted/gravad/however you call it. On rye bread. I haven’t had nearly enough salmon since the cursed EU made the Norwegians raise their prices on salmon. (Maybe I should move to Norway – or find myself a guy who fishes. That would give me time to read!)
Truthfully, when I live abroad it’s rye bread I miss. But now that I’m home where I can get all the rye bread I want at any supermarket or bakery (and satisfy most exotic yearnings at little ethnic groceries) it’s salmon I lust after.
I’m so tired right now that if someone brought me a good, steaming hot, cup of black coffee, I might very well make both of us happy.
I am sitting here wracking my brains for some food that I long for, and I’m coming up blank. Maybe I need to broaden my taste horizons.
Agedashi tofu. Just the right amount of gingery goodness flaked into the tempura crust. Crunchy on the outside, melt in your mouth tofu inside.
Side of slightly dry sake that has just a hint of plum-fruityness on that first sip.
This is a food experience (starting with that warm, almond-scented hand washing). I don’t even understand what makes me crave this like nothing else, but while my husband is drooling over thin slices of “oily tuna” between visits to our favorite sushi restaurant, its the agedashi tofu that keeps me up at night.
OMG!! That is so funny.
My mind is swimming with everybody’s choices and I feel like such a dork. My food is plain potato chips and garlic dip. Its not allowed in my house because it’s an automatic binge. I could eat the chips till my mouth is swollen from salt overload (rather than swollen from kisses) and go till I’m a round ball of over-sated femaleness.
Not that it takes such Herculean effort on my significant others part, the calories that will definitely lend towards an activity to take those calories back off is my ‘liquid crack’ known as a Starbucks Peppermint White Mocha.
I give it up (on a fairly regular basis) for the man who cooks for me every night. He’s a chef at a restaurant that does lots of yummy comfort food, so at home, he likes to cook for people—namely, me, and also him—who have slightly more sophistocated tastes. What gets me going, more so than the fact that there is a man cooking for me, is that while he’s preparing the dish… he totally ignores me.
I sit in my chair in his kitchen, sipping the glass of red wine he’s poured me, and watch this skinny Irishman dance around the kitchen, mincing garlic, slicing bread. Often he’ll stop and feed me a bit of whatever ingredient he’s currently slicing—a bit of cheddar, the ends of loaves (he knows I love crusts), a mushroom—before going back to his stove. There is no conversation, only smells, and me watching him from my chair like some sort of feral jungle cat ready to devour everything that looks tasty. Mostly him.
The first time he cooked for me, I had just had a small operation that made it impossible for me to have sex. “Stop!” I said. “We’re ordering pizza!” There was just no way I was going to let him cook for me, for the first time, without immediately being able to tear off all his clothes. As Anthony Bourdain says, good food should make people want to have sex. It doesn’t need to try; it’s just sexy.
(Small aside: now that I realize, after much sampling, how good his food is, and likewise, how good the sex is, sometimes I have to sneak in a little sex before the meal commences. I’m so full afterwards, it’s all we can do to grin ridiculously at each other before passing out. Usually.)
I love a good brownie. When they’re hot and right out of the oven. I’m in such a piss-poor mood today, though, that anyone expecting some lovin’ is bound to be disappointed.
God I love food but sex with the server—ummmh! That’s a tough one. Chicago is luckily FULL of ethnic food of all types lovingly prepared in Mom/Pop establishments, great ribs & soul food(southern blacks brought some good eats when they migrated here), and some fantastic local hand made chocolates (my all time favorite food). Superior Mexican food (after all Rick Bayless has his restaurants here!) with a local restaurant a mile away that makes fantastic mole. I’m a great cook myself and make fantastic pasta and lasagna. Even great seafood flown in—at a price—lovingly prepared in some great restaurants. Frankly if I get a craving for something the only thing holding me back from getting it is that it might cost a lot more than I’m willing to pay.
Frankly if you live in a marvelous place like Chicago with its mix of people from all over you have several of almost any type of restaurant to choose from. (A small grocery near me has homemade tamales brought in by a local lady once or twice a week—super yummm.) I get out of season cravings, of course, lovely vineripened fresh melon is hard to find in Feb. anywhere but so does everyone else everywhere.
I do crave my Grandmother’s big fantastic “tea cakes”—southern cookies not very sweet but delicious but I’ve been craving them since she died 25 years ago and always will. No recipe—just a bit of this and a fistful of that. AND the most delicious yeast rolls that were high, light and tasted deliciously of yeast that I’ve never had the like since. Great cold with a dollup of homemade jelly and a glass of iced sweettea. Unfortunately you’d have to send someone capable of bringing her back to make them.
Ban Chien Kueh. It’s a Malaysian peanut pancake. I have not found anything like it in the States for 27 years. If someone comes to my door now with a LOT of Ban Chien Kueh, or as we call it in Malaysia, Tai Kao Min, I’ll do you and your twin brother right in my kitchen. Just don’t mind me munching away.
I want one a big ass burrito from a hole-in-the-wall place in the San Francisco Bay Area. You’d get in line and it was like Subway for burritos. You’d tell the little hispanic lady behind the counter what you wanted in your burrito: chicken cooked in this delicious sauce, or pork, or beef, rice, guacamole, beans, hot sauce, etc.
It was heaven on earth.
You’d come out of the shop with this massive burrito wrapped in foil all dripping with tasty yumminess.
This is a hard one, but I think I am going to have to go with tomato water.
Tomato water, if you have never had it, is the liquid of the gods. One obtains it thusly:
1. Several perfectly ripe tomatoes. Vine-ripened, no less, and not the shabby pretense of tomato you buy in the grocery store with the stubby green bits attached—real, glorious, heirloom tomatoes, the kinds that you can never sell in a grocery store because they are so exquisitely sun-ripened that you cannot stack them into a produce box, or they will squish. These, you purloin from a farmer’s market on an early Saturday morning.
2. Chop them into tiny bits. Show no mercy. Put the chopped up bits into a mess of cheese cloth. Do not, for the love of God, do anything so gauche as to squeeze the cheese cloth. Instead, suspend the cheese cloth over a bowl in your refrigerator and let it sit, dripping out the juices, for two days.
3. What you will get out is a mostly clear fluid. Oh, it might look a little pink if you use red tomatoes—but if you use yellow or green ones (green zebras make awesome tomato water) it will be perfectly clear. This clear fluid is the nectar of the gods. It is liquid tomato—and not just any tomato, but it is the flavor of a tomato pulled off the vine and popped into your mouth.
4. If you must adulterate the tomato water, slice the following paper-thin and add in sufficient quantity to just let the pieces bask in the tomato water:
plum, apple, jalapeno, sweet pepper, shallot, basil, mint
allow the mixture to macerate for several hours, and then get some cherry tomatoes (the little black ones, again from the farmer’s market) and slice them in half and let them bob on top.
A bowl of this will get me out of anything I’m wearing in no time flat, and it’s just my luck that Mr. Milan makes it during the summer.
Ultimately, though, it’s not the food itself—it is the ingredients and the preparation.
P.S. Sherry, I had agar-agar jelly salad at a Korean restaurant in Colorado Springs. Slightly different dressing, but the same thing. And yes, it is too kill for!
I once had a dish of mussels, steamed with ginger and lemon grass and Thai peppers and goodness knows what else. And when the mussels were gone I poured the liquid (likker?) over Jasmine rice and shamed myself with the gustatory orgy of it all. This was around 1991 and I have been kept awake nights since then wondering what I did that I cannot replicate this dish. The situation is beyond bearable.
A man (or a woman, now that I think on it, because although I prefer the company of men in that particular way I’m willing to be flexible – we *are* talking about 17 years of trying here) who brought me a bowl of these mussels would be rewarded with every trick and nuance of amorous attention I’ve acquired in my 39 years on this earth.
While in Scotland I discovered Chocolate Caramel Shortbread. Buttery shortbread with a layer of carmel and topped with milk chocolate = orgasmic. Of course now that I’m back in the states I can’t find it anywhere and although my hips are certainly happier about that fact, I have to confess that I day dream about caramel deliciousness.
The Mighty Loving that would ensue if someone brought me Chocolate Caramel Shortbread would put even the hottest love scenes to shame. Particularly if it came via a Hottie Scottie in a kilt. In fact, if that happened I think my ovaries and taste buds might just explode on sight. *sigh* Oh, but I’d die happy. Very very happy.
I have to say that I would rip off my clothes and drop my panties for a huge plate of oven roasted potatoes covered with garlic herb butter. Oh, God, it’s so warm and slick, and the nuggets of potato just make my tongue have an orgasm! The garlic herb butter is so savory it’s a treat to my tongue and I’d be willing to use my tongue to treat the bringer of this dish to me.
Joykenn, try getting a mint julep on Derby weekend in Chicago. It’s the ONE THING I was never able to find (didn’t discover Heaven on Seven until later in the week.) But you do live in culinary heaven. Good Lord, even your popcorn (Garrett’s) is the best of the best. And let’s not even talk about a Chicago hot dog. I’m salivating.
I’m a major foodie, so making a choice is near to impossible. All depends on my mood. However, there was this old restaurant called the 94th Aero Squadron (WWII themed) that had this amazing starter salad. I think the trick to the dressing was toasted sesame oil, but I was a teen when it closed and my culinary skills were not good enough to recognize ingredients. If a former waiter from that restaurant showed up at my house (it was made table-side), he might get lucky.
I’m picking a salad. God, that’s ridiculous. Ooooh, what about the crab cake benedict from the Bellagio in Vegas? Oh, yeah. That’s better. Beignets from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans? Anything from La Duni in Dallas? I’m such a food traveler! But honestly…who said good ribs? Because that’s a hard find…and I’ll do anything for good ribs! (Wet, not dry…and no mustard based sauces, please.)
Really scrumptious Japanese “chou creams” (cream puffs) will do for me. Mind you, it is near impossible to find really good Japanese chou cream places in US. My friend in NYC tells me there are a few in Mahattan area which I am determined to visit this summer.
A slice of Moussaka Pizza from Mystic Pizza. Yes, there was a film titled “Mystic Pizza” that starred Julia Roberts (back when she had that wildly beautiful hair, but before she became Pretty Woman). But Mystic Pizza is an actual pizza restuarant that serves the best pizza I have ever eaten.
http://www.mysticpizza.com/mys_menu.htm
My husband was stationed at the Submarine base nearby. It was his first time being out to sea and away from me since we had been married. To cheer ourselves up, a few of us wives headed to Mystic Pizza, ordered 3 different pies and several glasses of wine and commiserated. The pizza was magnificent. The company was comforting. If it weren’t for my fellow wives and a slice of moussaka pizza, I don’t know how I would have gotten through that first night.
Wow, that was 12 years ago! I’d love to go there again with some girlfriends and relive that night.
KTG
S’mores.
The outdoor fire is a necessity (none of this toasting the marshmallows over scented candles crap), as is the chocolate (Hershey’s, please) ice-cold from a cooler. Guh……
The nachos from Denny’s. My eyes have been known to roll into the back of my head with the first bite of these babies. And my husband says I even moaned once. He swears that it no one in the restaurant could have heard me, but DAMN.
I am such a cheap date. *sigh*
Bring me a top shelf single malt scotch and I’m yours.
But for food? Hmmm….The perfect flan or creme brulee might do it for me. Plus you can have fun with it in bed!