Eat Me: Love, Sex and the Art of Eating

‘The Beginning’ ‘The Middle’ ‘The End’

Hey, back off! I didn’t write the rules, so don’t shoot the messenger.

Come on, don’t get too disheartened, of course True Love exists. Look around you, surely you know loads of people in successful relationships, happily married with a couple of kids, white picket fence, roses over the door, etc? Whaddaya mean they’re all divorced? There is no place in our world for such blatant (though, some would say, justified) cynicism. I as the author reserve the right to keep an open mind. One day my prince will come, as will yours.

Honest.

Meanwhile, in the parallel universe that is Serial Monogamy, I will embark on every new relationship with relish and have myself an absolute ball. Life is too short to mope around and beat one’s, hopefully ample, breast over yet another lost love. Not all men are bastards, just as all women are not gold-digging ball-breakers: this is but an urban myth. I hope.

So there you have it, in most cases life is not the fairytale we were told it was going to be but, hey, neither is it so bad. We may have to kiss a lot of toads before we find our prince but … kissing the right toads, in the right places, whilst feasting on the perfect morsel, can actually be a lot of fun.

Please enjoy your Serial Monogamy in the knowledge that one day, when you are old and grey, rocking in your chair surrounded by your gloriously doting grandchildren (or you’re the oldest swinger in town, suckin’ down a Margarita with your latest toy boy/girl), you won’t regret the things you did.

Only the things you didn’t.

Your words are my food, your breath my wine, you are everything to me.

SARAH BERNHARDT

Right, I’m glad that’s over with. Now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk food, my next favourite subject.

It is my belief that food plays a significant role in the seduction, the pleasuring and the binding together of two newly-dating individuals. This first became apparent when, at the tender age of 16 and a total innocent, I was taken out to dinner on a proper date for the first time ever. Mitch was 24 years old and a friend of a friend, he used to come over to my house and we’d spend hours listening to music and just hanging out. When he asked me to go to dinner I was over the moon, but my parents less so and only allowed me to go out with this ostensibly much older man on the condition that I was home by 11pm, sharp.

He picked me up at 7.30pm in his rather flash and very red sports car and took me, at somewhat high speed, to a very ‘in’ bistro in Mayfair. Walking into that jewelled, cavelike restaurant was the most amazing moment of my thus far rather sheltered 16-year-old life. Everywhere I looked there was glamour, I felt like I’d arrived. As a family we’d always gone to lovely restaurants but this was different, this was very grown up, utterly sophisticated and terribly sexy.

We were seated at a corner table with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, aka The Widow, which to this day remains my absolute favourite champagne. He ordered for both of us. (So manly.) We started with huge pink prawns dripping with butter and oozing garlic, which we ate with our fingers, catching the butter with our tongues as it dripped.

That was the precise moment that little Alex Antonioni realised that food was sexy. Really, really sexy. My mother had made this same dish a thousand times and it had never had quite this effect on me. This was indeed a revelation.

The prawns were followed by a perfect roast chicken whose ancestry lay in Bresse, France. It was presented to us on a silver salver; a whole roast chicken, crispy and golden and surrounded by perfectly turned baby carrots, tiny little roast potatoes and bunches of watercress to mop up the juices. An impossibly well-dressed waiter carved it in front of us at the table whilst all the other diners looked on enviously. Apparently you had to order this particular dish 48 hours in advance, Mitch had done just that.

I felt like a princess.

Pudding was Crêpes Suzette, which involved more tableside theatricals. Although by this point I think the waiter was just showing off, it was glorious. Piping-hot sticky crêpes were served whilst on fire and to a 16 year-old on a first date it was the absolute height of elegance. I felt like Audrey Hepburn somewhere between Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Pygmalion.

The memory of that meal has remained with me always. Over the course of that evening Mitch, who in reality was just ok-looking, became a prince amongst men. In the flickering candlelight of that restaurant, bewitched by the combination of ice-cold champagne, delicious food and flirtatious, giggly banter, I would have agreed to pretty much anything Mitch had in mind. I was utterly seduced.

My parents knew exactly what they were doing by not letting their daughters out of their sight for too long and when, after another round of coffees and a large Amaretto, I realised to my horror, Cinderella-like, what the time was I somewhat unsteadily left my idyll and Mitch escorted me home.

I was over an hour late. My father’s fury, conveyed via a colourful selection of choice words and the slamming of the front door, ensured Mitch never called me again.

Coward!

I never looked at food in quite the same way ever again, hence the concept of Eat Me; a collection of anecdotes, suggestions, aphrodisiacs, nibbles, rude food, drinks, dinners, lunches, bed picnics, quotes, feasts, snacks and comfort foods alongside a selection of menus to entertain friends and family that will ensure your lover’s full attentions and, well, who knows …

THE BEGINNING (#ulink_ff6059d6-f2dd-5e25-b399-8bd2795542a1)

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Your eyes meet across a crowded room at a party, on the tube, in a pub, at a wedding, down a coalmine, or even at Grandma’s funeral. It matters not a jot wheresoever the first glimpse occurs when Cupid’s arrow strikes and we meet a stranger who literally, inexplicably, takes our breath away. That spectacular, bestillmybeatingheart moment when everyone else in a 5km radius disappears and kapow! You are in lust.

Asinine, garbled conversations tend to follow, both stumbling over words, finding everything the other says fascinating, achingly familiar and hysterically funny in equal measure. Then, with slightly glazed eyes and manic grins, numbers are exchanged along with meaningful, longing glances … here we go again.

The stage is set …

The Players are eager to play …

Enter stage left, boy meets girl …

ATTRACTION (#ulink_175484dd-47d9-5840-b60a-db786c75d9e8)

Like a Moth to the Flame

So, Debbie McGee, what first attracted you to the millionaire, Paul Daniels?

MRS MERTON

In order to transform ourselves into the gastronomic goddess we yearn to be it is crucial that we have a subject, namely a man, around whom we can weave our culinary magic – and not just any old guy, he must be someone that we like enough to want to impress and don our pinny for. If you already have someone in mind, good for you; for those of us who are still looking, this chapter is especially for you. (Although, even if you have your prey in sight don’t skip this chapter ’cos, honey, you never know.)

I love to cook and enjoy nothing more than inviting good friends round, cooking up a storm, sharing a few bottles of wine and putting the world to rights. I’m a little more reticent to cook for a man, a new potential Mr Right – I don’t flash my copper-bottom pans for just anybody.

The problem is, as I’m getting a little older I’m getting a lot fussier. These days it takes a little more than a cute arse and a moody stare for me to want to grind my spices, rattle those pans and shake my booty.

Much has been written about Attraction. Why is it that some people attract us like a moth to a flame whilst others, for no apparent reason, leave us as cold as yesterday’s custard? How is it that one girl’s Titanic is another girl’s Love Boat?

I wish I knew. It would certainly facilitate the soul-destroying, life-sapping and ego-wrecking process of trying to meet ‘someone new’.

Sex appeal is 50 per cent what you’ve got and 50 per cent what people think you’ve got.

SOPHIA LOREN

From my experience we girls generally go for the same ‘type’ over and over again, no matter that we really should have learnt our lesson by now. With me, it’s bad boys. No matter how often it ends in tears I just can’t help myself; if they look a little naughty and act a little wild you can be sure I’ll be fluttering my eyelashes and simpering in their general direction.

In an attempt at attracting a member of the opposite sex with a view to ‘dating’, all we can do is make an effort to get out there, put our best foot forward, chest out, tummy in and hope for the best. Or is it? What if we had some pointers? Some inside information?

I asked all the men I knew what they found attractive in women, what it was that caught their eye and captured their hearts. Below, please find the, sometimes unexpected, results of that exhaustive study.

It will come as no surprise to any of us to hear that men fall in love with their eyes and women fall in love with their ears. Guys just cannot help themselves. They are suckers for a pretty face, big boobs, a peach of a bottom and a knowing smile – not necessarily in that order. (Unless they are drunk, in which case they don’t care what you look like as long as you agree to go home with them. Tragic, but true. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

However, conversely, are we ladies not in turn attracted to a six-pack? George Clooney? Brad Pitt? And of course, a healthy bank balance always does amazing things to a guy’s phwoar-factor. They have their fantasy woman and we have our fantasy guy, but in the real world we don’t date the ‘fantasy’, we date each other.

Are you with me thus far?

Whilst all men (yes, all men, unless of course they’re watching football) will do a double take at the sight of a well-stacked babe with a pert bottom, full lips and pelmet skirt, deep down they’re not that shallow when it comes to choosing a mate for life. They just couldn’t be. Could they?

The guys I spoke to inferred that when seeking a Long Term Relationship, the majority of them (did you get that? I said the majority, some are indeed hopeless cases) are not attracted solely to the tits and arse package when it does not include some or all of the following attributes.