Well, in addition to being a food writer, I’m a sex educator.

And sex and food are both about pleasure, aren’t they?

So I’ve finally brought my two passions together, which is why you’re seeing regular posts about sex and food–such as my weekly “Sexy Feast” posts for Seattle Weekly’s Voracious blog.

Bigger news: The Sexy Feast column came to life in early 2011, as I collaborated with area restaurants in hosting a Sexy Feast dinner series.

I worked with each restaurant’s chef in designing a delicious, multi-course meal full of “lessons in love.” Then, much as a winemaker would talk about fabulous food and wine pairings, I paired each course with commentary about what the food teaches about sex and relationships.

A highlight: I did a Sexy Feast dinner on Lummi Island at Willows Inn, which The New York Times recently named one of the world’s “10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride.”

Here is the video about Sexy Feast as it ran on Evening Magazine as the lead story on February 10.

And here is a story about Sexy Feast on Seattleite.

This is the second article of mine that

Is variety the spice of life?

That’s the question I can’t resist asking Amanda Bevill, owner of World Spice Merchants, minutes after meeting her. “It’s not just variety, but also possibility and adventure,” she replies, adding, “Cooking with spices is about the possibility of what’s out there, the unknown—it keeps people interested in food.”

The temptation of spice seems limitless. “When you think about the age of exploration [and] people sailing off to the edge of the earth, a big part of what they were looking for was spices,” marvels Bevill.

Indeed, the quest for seeds and powders and such led explorers and traders to the farthest of destinations, circumnavigating the globe, from Magellan’s search for the Spice Islands (to find cloves) to Columbus’ “discovery” of the New World (to procure peppers). And for what purpose? Spices were a magical ingredient of food and drinks, but their use as aphrodisiacs, sometimes in the creation of love potions, extended their reach beyond the kitchen to the bedroom. With both sensual and sexual allure, spices have long been a powerful force driving both culinary and erotic adventure.

Find your way to World Spice in Seattle, and you’ll find yourself beholden to jar after jar of one-ounce samples of spices, each with its own unique appearance, color(s), smell, and descriptive information. It can be a bit overwhelming to a newbie. To hear Bevill describe it, shopping at her place sounds like visiting an adult toy store. “This store is definitely for the adventurous,” she says. “To come here, you have to be committed, to really want it, to spend the time, to walk around, to open the jars, to figure it out.” When I mention the sex shop analogy, she smiles and quips that both offer “very hedonistic pleasure.”

At both types of stores, you can look and smell (of the entrancing aromas, Bevill tells me “we jokingly say it’s our best marketing; all we gotta do is open the door”) and maybe even touch, but beyond that, you can only imagine the pleasure. There’s ongoing talk of doing demos at World Spice, but besides a few recipes, there’s no manual—and there’s actually no absolute right or wrong. “You can’t teach in terms of a book,” Bevill says of the spices, adding, “You have to take them home to really experience them.”

Most common purchases are salt and pepper, but World Spice customers eventually expand their repertoires, sometimes after a gentle suggestion from the staff. They experiment, going for complexity. Bevill says it’s interesting to see the different ways people react to different spices, especially the spice blends.

“We have exotic blends like ras el hanout (meaning “top of the shop”) that’s got over 50 ingredients in it,” she says, continuing, “It’s very complicated to make, very beautiful to see, and most people smell it and go ‘Ooh’ but occasionally one person goes ‘Yuck’—it’s interesting to me when you find something that most people are really drawn to and another person is repulsed by.”

The polarized reactions parallel, in my belief, polarized sexual behaviors among people—as well as polarized attitudes about sex and sex education. Spice lovers live to eat and live to play, embracing sex for recreation. They have a zest for life, and don’t need a cookbook or sex manual to maximize pleasure in their lives.

In contrast, some stuck on pepper and salt see things in black and white, and have a strict recipe for life. They eat to live, don’t see the point in pleasure, and believe in sex for procreation only—finding it threatening to themselves and to society. They do it in the dark with their eyes closed, living their lives in fear of falling off the edge, and seeking refuge in rules and regulations.

This fear often plays out in anti-gay, anti-birth control, anti-sex education sentiment. Boil it down and it’s basically anti-sex and anti-pleasure, with such sentiment sometimes turning hostile. As a sex educator, I’ve endured angry confrontation, received hate mail, and faced vitriol that’s escalated to the level of death threats.

I feel like Kevin Bacon in Beaumont, “footloose” in rebelling against archaic attitudes about rock music and dancing. Or, a more apt analogy for this article, like Juliet Binoche in Chocolat, practically run out of town for serving spiced hot cocoa and other sensual delights which stimulate the pious people of a rural French village. (One of those people is the mayor, who succumbs to the power of pleasure after he breaks into the chocolaterie to destroy a naked chocolate figure, only to have a small piece fall on his lips, unlocking his “hidden yearnings” as he gorges himself on the remains.)

The culture war on sex continues, and lately seems to be gathering strength. Last year, California schools pulled the Merriam Webster dictionary off shelves because one parent complained about a definition of oral sex. About the same time, school officials in Virginia threatened to remove a version of Anne Frank’s diary because of a complaint that Anne discovers her changing body and makes reference to her vagina.

Such censorship attempts hit remarkably close to home. Recently, a handful of people complained to a storeowner about my “Hot Plate” column bringing sexual content to Edible Seattle. Small numbers can hold sex and sex education hostage, as controversy can have a chilling effect. The storeowner wondered whether it was worth the battle to continue selling the magazine. My publisher nervously weighed my words, culminating in cuts that, in a recent article, felt like censorship. I then struggled with what I would be allowed to write, and as the ongoing battle for integrity wore on, I was forced to leave the publication.

All out of fear of a few who fear spicy talk and who protest against pleasure.

Embracing pleasure and recognizing the good we do for the world is what makes it worthwhile, both in my work as a sex educator (where the feedback is overwhelmingly positive), and back at the spice shop. Bevill gets it, talking about the spice business: “I love doing this. I love talking with people every day about what they’re going to have for dinner that night…it enriches people’s lives in such a basic way, like sex.”

“So there are more smiles than frowns in this store?” I ask, thinking about the fretting faces of the anti-sex and sex education crowd.

“So many more!” she exclaims, adding, “And so often they will have found that one special thing online or heard that we had it, and they make the trek like a pilgrimage…unwilling to settle for the substitute or the second best.” I consider the Tasmanian pepperberry, the grains of paradise, and even the initially off-putting asafoetida that Bevill taught me about today when she laughs. “I think there are quite a few aphrodisiacal meals being made with our spices,” she muses.

I ask Bevill what her most sexy meal would be, and what spices she’d use. She seems stumped, which reminds me of what it was once like when people asked me: “What’s your favorite sexual position?”

But I discovered my answer: The one I’ve yet to discover and experience.

Bevill tells me, “We like to say that old spices don’t die; they just kind of fade away.” Like spices, we should not let our sex lives become stale. Just as spices can be blended into infinite combinations and made more complex and interesting, we can do the same for sex.

As we finish, Bevill says, “I have long advocated changing our tag line to ‘We play with our food.’” Let’s not forget that sex is play, too, and that we all have the potential to, as the saying goes, spice up our sex lives.

ADDENDUM

Bevill eventually shared her idea of a spicy-filled, sexy meal. Initially a bit overwhelmed with possibilities (as should be the case!), she dreamed about cinnamon, roses, and chocolate. She also mentioned peppers, as they’re warming and good for circulation—which is good for sex.

With more time, she later emailed me to say she had settled upon skewers of roasted lamb with ras el hanout, preferably cooked over an open flame. “The ras el hanout blend embodies the alchemical qualities of spice blending. Many ingredients come together to create something completely new. With so much going on it is hard to identify specifics. It’s mysterious. You widen your eyes and ask, “What is that?”

She’d also serve a strong cast of supporting characters: a bold red wine, saffron rice, and something smooth and creamy for dessert like ice cream—probably vanilla. The highlight of the meal, though, would be the lamb skewers, infusing the dinner with that mysterious, magical spice creating wonder, intrigue—and, yes, pleasure.

Photos by Rina Jordan.

…a chocolatier’s lifelong relationship with the world’s favorite indulgence

Note: This is the uncensored version of the “Hot Plate” article from the January/February 2011 issue of Edible Seattle—my last published piece for the magazine.

This is also my explanation of why I left the magazine.

It’s a bit painful for me to share, as I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to write for Edible Seattle, and appreciate all those who contribute to it. I loved my regular sex and food feature. But given the hostile political/cultural climate related to sex in this country, I think it’s important to discuss my departure from Edible Seattle, especially as many people are now discovering that “Hot Plate” is missing from the current issue.

Much to my surprise (and that of my editor, who has always supported my writing), my publisher made his own changes to the article below just before it hit the press. The reason was not space, but content.

There had been a few isolated complaints about my sex-related column appearing in a food magazine, including a call from a store owner on Bainbridge Island who faced opposition from a couple of customers. Given my years of experience as a sex educator dealing with issues like this, I would guess that the complaints came from non-subscribers. In fact, they were probably people who don’t even read the magazine, but who act as “moral guardians” of our society.

It’s frightening how many people are dealing with their own sexual issues. Sadly, they often have an underlying discomfort with sex, and an inability to constructively communicate about it. This is true not only of my opposition, but, amazingly, even some I would normally expect to be allies.

Sexual health services and sex education are under attack in this country. In the past year, we’ve seen the Merriam Webster dictionary and Anne Frank’s diary pulled off the shelves of public schools because of complaints about sexual content, however minor.

After the censorship of the article you’re about to read, I insisted on rights to final approval of any changes to future articles. My publisher insisted on too many cuts to the “Hot Plate” article slated for the March/April issue of Edible Seattle (now available), so I pulled it. I will be posting that piece shortly.

For now, I am sharing the previous piece, with the censored parts highlighted. Not only were the cuts absurd, but they changed the quality of my writing and the tone of the article, particularly in the case of the conclusion.

Marlene Dietrich once said, “Americans don’t have sex, they have sex problems.”

I’m saddened that personal discomfort with sex resulted in censorship, contributing to our current trend of holding sex education hostage, and feeding the culture of animosity toward sexual rights.

A handful of people complained. My publisher, in essence, among them. The opposition, achieving its goal in getting the column removed, won. Sadly, I now count my ex-publisher as part of the opposition.

Americans’ sex problems continue.

And now, the article…

***

Chocolate is sexy. There, I said it.

The connections between sex and chocolate have historical roots. Chocolate’s long been considered an aphrodisiac; in fact, in Aztec times, the power of chocolate was so strong that women were forbidden from eating it. (If you ask me, this might actually be when the women’s rights movement first began!)

While students might not learn that Aztec emperor Montezuma reportedly drank 50 goblets of red-dyed chocolate per day to increase his sexual prowess, they certainly know that green M&Ms make you horny—even when they’re too young to know what “horny” means. And don’t a lot of chocolate products have suggestive names? (Consider: Ding Dong, Ho Ho, Oh Henry!, Mounds and Butterfinger.) Chocolate can certainly be romantic, as we see during Valentine’s Day, but there’s always been a more erotic quality to it, evidenced by products like chocolate body paints and powders, genital-shaped candies, and the playful cakes and cookies available at Seattle’s Erotic Bakery.

But a visit with a local chocolatier reveals what chocolate can really teach us.

Autumn Martin first discovered her interest in the culinary world when she found herself working in a restaurant at a Truckee, California ski resort. (She gasps with astonishment when I point out the irony of the resort name: Sugar Bowl.) Inspired by watching the chef at work, she returned to Seattle and got a job at Honey Bear Bakery, which helped fund her culinary degree at Edmonds Community College. Shortly afterward, Autumn was lucky to land a job as pastry cook at Canlis. Delivery of chocolate samples piqued her curiosity in cacao, leading her to become head chocolatier at Theo Chocolate. She spent 4-1/2 years at Theo, recently leaving to develop her Hot Cakes business—which includes her popular bake-at-home, molten chocolate cake that comes in a four-ounce jar and is simply gooey goodness.

Autumn concurs that chocolate is seductively sexy, speaking dreamily while she tempers it. Citing its shininess, she notes that chocolate is “beautiful food,” and then marvels that it tastes good and is full of many different flavor profiles. There are numerous points of appeal. “Chocolate has this really smooth, sensual quality, the way it drips and pours,” she regales, adding, “There’s something really attractive about the fluidity of it…the way it melts in your mouth.”

Autumn especially lights up when she tells me about the opportunities she’s had to get chocolate not just inside people, but outside as well. “I love chocolate and the human body together,” she exclaims as she tells me about an artistic event in which she painted entire bodies in chocolate. Most impressionable for the subjects? First was how soft the skin felt afterward from all the cocoa butter that soaked in for hours. Second, Autumn says, was the “’whew’ kind of high” from the body absorbing all the theobromine from the chocolate. This after they screamed aloud about chocolate dripping off their hair, into their eyes, and between the buttocks—but ultimately found the experience intoxicating.

Further discussing the delights of chocolate, Autumn tells me she believes that chocolate stimulates the body, though she’s not sure if chemically it’s an aphrodisiac. But she is fond of creating aphrodisiacal confections for Valentine’s Day, doing infusions with herbs like damiana—an herb whose leaves have a chamomile-like scent, and which some people call Mexican Viagra. Curious to know whether a chocolatier appreciates a chocolate gift on Valentine’s Day, she says not really, as she’s always eating it, then smiles and adds, “I want love every day.”

The temptation and stimulation of chocolate can make it addictive. Autumn talks about the intensity of working with chocolate—of being around it and eating it daily. One day, having had her fill, she realized she had to get away from it. “I was like no chocolate, no sugar, I want it out of my life,” she recalls, taking a sabbatical from Theo and threatening, “Screw you, chocolate, I don’t need you.”

But turns out she did. “During that time, I discovered that I still really wanted to eat chocolate,” she says, noting, “I still wanted that flavor and that texture in my mouth.” Pralus’ Le 100% bar, made from 100% Madagascan cocoa, fulfilled her desire for chocolate without sugar. Autumn couldn’t get away from chocolate, and soon returned to both eating and creating confections. She talks about her sabbatical as an “evolution” in which she refined her connection and found the right way to incorporate chocolate into her life:

“That right there in a long-term relationship is a really good lesson: determining how to keep something or somebody in your life…for a long period of time.…How can I take a step back and analyze my connection to whatever it is and find a way to be committed and still true to what I need? So it’s helped me to slow down, to take a step back, and not be so impulsive. Chocolate…it’s so slow—you saw how long it took me to temper the chocolate—chocolate simply cannot be rushed.”

Hearing Autumn’s words while watching her work, I’m struck by the thought that it’s easy to take both sex and chocolate for granted, and that we need to slow down to appreciate both.

Think about it. When we’re young, we’re typically not picky about our chocolate. I recall Halloween, and how I’d often eat the chocolate faster than I could Trick-or-Treat it into my bag, with minimal pause and consideration. Oh, I had my preferences, and would trade my Mounds and Almond Joys for Three Musketeers and Milky Ways, but I was still wolfing it all down, going for quantity over quality. As the term “sugar rush” implies, eating chocolate was a fast experience.

Fast, of course, is a sexual term meaning easy. For many young people (and some not-so-young), sex mirrors their chocolate-eating habits. During the early years of sexual discovery, they experiment with many partners, sampling around and going through them quickly.

Exceptions aside, I’d say that most young people are not really enjoying sex. They’re just indulging in it, accumulating and tossing aside partners like wrappers. They tend to consume sex without really relishing it.

Contrast that to Autumn making truffles, celebrating the sound as she taps the molds and the sight as it rains chocolate. It’s a process that thrills the senses—the very senses that should come into play when we learn to really taste chocolate. Observing the texture and shine of the chocolate. Listening to the snap when we break off a bite. Inhaling the aroma at the break point to discern the different scents. Placing the chocolate on the tongue and letting it melt to get the mouthfeel. Chewing a bite to take in the texture and the flavors, whether fruity, herbal, floral, or something else.

Do we take the time to “taste” a partner—new or old—in the same way? How well can we describe the softness of the nape of his or her neck? The natural body odor? The sound of him or her breathing during sex, or after? The shape of the torso? The taste of a kiss? Do we note the nuances, or has making love become as routine as buying a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day?

As we strive for better quality, as many of us do as we get older, we interact with the chocolate, finding out its origins, how it was made, who was involved in the process, how it got where it is today. I’d suggest we do the same with our partners. Many of us in long-term relationships probably have some catching up to do.

Autumn not only grew to love chocolate again, but loves how it helps her evaluate her relationships and pay attention to the details of life. To be patient and enjoy the process, being aware with all the senses:

“One of my most favorite things to do at the beach, and it’s always been true, is to stand in the sand right where the waves creep up onto the beach and then wait for the waves to roll over my feet and suck the sand out from under them. I’ve always loved that. And little things like that with food—like touching this cocoa powder and letting it crumble in between my fingers—that kind of stuff has always gotten me. That scene in Amélie where she sticks her hands out into a bin of grains…Yes! Yes!”

(Photos by Rina Jordan.)

Yeah, I’ve been watching Top Chef Masters this season, even after all three Seattle chefs fell in their first episodes. I got a kick out of this week’s episode when Susur Lee (who’s a kick himself) made a lust-filled dessert, including a “little triangle” which prompted one of the judges to say “I think everything is a vagina.”

I’ve had the fortune of attending this festival, held at the Kanamara Shrine in Kawasaki, featuring penis carving contests (wood and vegetable carvings), penis-shaped lollipops, phallic see-saws, and a parade through town that includes drag queens carrying a massive pink penis. The event is actually steeped in tradition, dating back to the Edo period when prostitutes would pray for protection against disease. To this day, couples go to the shrine with hope of promoting fertility. The atmosphere is truly festive, and also marks an occasion to raise money for HIV research.

In honor of the event, Matsuri restaurant in New York served a one-night Penis Matsuri menu yesterday. Chef Tadashi Ono’s creations included:

• Get It Up Hot Pot ($23) – a traditional Japanese Hot Pot of oyster and sea urchin in dashi broth
• Big Sausage ($18) – with sea scallops and spicy cod roe
• Hard Banana Cream Pie ($9) – caramelized with chocolate ice cream

I was wondering why Seattle doesn’t do something to celebrate Sunday’s Kanamara Matsuri when I got this notice from Babeland about an Easter-themed treat they called the Vibrating Chocolate Bunny:

Good news ladies, you no longer have to choose between your two favorite passions: chocolate and sex. Just in time for Easter, Babeland introduces the first-ever Vibrating Chocolate Bunny–designed to satisfy both your cravings. Wrapped in smooth, seamless gold foil, the vibrator can be used as you would any Rabbit Vibrator to stimulate both the clitoris and the G-spot. But, when you’ve had your fill, simply remove the disposable motor, unwrap the toy, and voila: you’ve got your very own, very special chocolate Easter bunny. Once you’ve feasted on the delicious milk chocolate bunny, what’s left of the bunny (the foil wrapper and the motor) can be recycled, making this one very eco-friendly rabbit. Available for a limited time only. Buy now, $49.

I suspected it was an April Fools’ prank (the furnished link led to a day-long bonus deal), but as Babeland itself pointed out, I hope that maybe this fantasy can one day turn into a reality. Wouldn’t that help make future April Sundays (and, heck, all days) a phallic-filled festivus for the rest of us?

“On the verge of bein’ obscene” is how Prince describes his babe’s body in this 1982 classic; it’s also an apt description of the song itself. On the surface, “Little Red Corvette” sounds like it’s about a car, but it is filled with not-so-hidden sexual references. Chef Savuthy “T” Dye of Urbane, who suggested this song after participating in last month’s Dish-Off, envisioned the use of aphrodisiacal foods, but adds that since the song is about a woman going too fast (and a man who wants her to slow down), this month’s chefs might “move in a different direction, concentrating on the words ‘fast’ and ‘slow’—maybe doing a gourmet take on fast food, or a combination of fast and slow foods on the same plate.” How will two Wallingford chefs get down and dirty in making a main dish that would please a Prince—or at least T and me?

Avila: Swordfish and Puttanesca Sauce

When told of the song, Chef Alex Pitts and his team at Avila thought “fast cars and fast women” and immediately wanted to serve something that moves fast in the wild, settling on swordfish. “Since it’s predatory, it’s perfect for the song,” Pitts says. The fish is well-chosen, and well-cooked. As for the sauce with a name (as we saw in October, when Branzino prepared it) that means “of a whore,” restaurant owner Jared Carpenter explains delicately: “Prince is basically talking about a woman who—what’s the best way to put it—enjoys life.” This modern take on puttanesca sauce is colorful and delightful, featuring (Tuscan) Controne beans, Castelvetrano olives, cherry tomatoes and yellow peppers. A polenta cone finishes the dish, which looks as good as it tastes. I especially like the olives, a noted aphrodisiac.

Cantinetta: Pork Three Ways

Cantinetta chef Brian Cartenuto is quite the character, as is easy to discern from his “Bachelor in the Kitchen” blog. This challenge was right up his alley. When he brings the pork-filled plate, he announces, “The song is not only about sex, but it’s actually all about vaginas.” As I wonder whether this will be suitable for publication, he adds, “When I think about vaginas, I think about ‘porking,’ and since no one likes to do it in just one position, I present to you ‘Pork Three Ways.’” On one side, braised pork belly, crisped in pork fat, on a bed of shaved Brussels sprouts with pancetta; on the other, a pork and shrimp “shumai”—actually more like sausage on a stick—served with stone-ground mustard, and kohlrabi and grapefruit salad. Cartenuto is a crazy chef cooking crazily good food.

Photos by Rina Jordan. (Click to enlarge them.)

Note: Dish-Off reviews are based on announced visits. Restaurants get guidelines and choose what to serve according to the month’s song.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Mine started with a huge turkey dinner for eight which I won from Whole Foods Market in Interbay. (Thanks!) Made some kimchi that day (my first with salted shrimp) which I’ll test tomorrow. Thanksgiving leftovers turned into turkey stock (for turkey noodle soup) and a Vietnamese cabbage and turkey salad, which Akiko and I took, along with some homemade lemongrass ice cream, to our friends Lorna and Henry – who made some pho for us.

Saturday we had sliders for ART’s sliders for a light lunch, and then Akiko took me out for a great sushi meal for dinner. Walking to our bus afterward, we made an impulse stop for a dessert I’ve been wanting to try for many, many months. Today, Akiko made gyoza and I made Chinese almond cookies which we took to a dumpling and cookies party.

Tomorrow I should be posting the November Dish-Off results. After that, my goal is to catch up on a few dozen restaurant write-ups in reverse order, starting with the recent sushi dinner and dessert. Stay tuned!