Do chefs make better lovers? I get asked that question a lot. Because a foodie is a mouth with a vestigial person attached, one might think so. Indeed the skills and emotions involved in producing a great meal are exactly those at play in making great sex: passion, timing, sensitivity, the adventurous appetite, the brilliant chance of pace, the shock of surprise. All the senses that register pleasure at the table come into play in bed—the smell of sun on skin, the pop of salmon roe on your tongue, the crunch of celery in the same ear that registers the moan of ecstasy or a dirty word.

David Bouley Photo: Steven Richter.

        But in that same time, while the chefs may not have evolved as lovers, the country has changed around them: America’s dining revolution has given chefs unimagined opportunities. As more people became obsessed with good food, chefs became celebrities. They got TV shows, their own network. They’ve become rock stars, with all the trappings. Fan clubs, sex, groupies.

        Adds a woman in media involved with chefs on display, “I couldn’t possibly tell you what I’ve seen on the road.”

        I did find one pro, a restaurateur at the center of the star-chef game, who pines for the old days, and had some decent reasons. “It’s not like the ’80s anymore,” he says. “It’s too dangerous to take risks. The camera is always watching. Someone will sue or write about it. They are more groupies than ever, but for people my age, some of us married now, we’ve grown out of it.

        “All day you see women coming for your food, looking at you that way. After all, food is sexy.”

generations from disco to bed seems too focused now on food, shopping (organica and leafy local greens), cooking and eating out ,and endless blogging about it. I can’t believe that anyone has the time for advanced love-making—

Iron Chef Bobby Flay

changing the sheets, soaking in a scented bath, setting up a favorite porn film. If the newbies are born already attached to a keyboard and their parents spend those midlife-crisis years at the computer, or scouting plywood sheathing coming down on new restaurants and texting gossip to Eater and Gawker… where does erotic adventure fit in? A Yelp is not like an orgasmic moan, or maybe to some it is. As for the compulsion to Tweet. Tweeting does not lead to kissing like dancing did. Whatever became of infidelity in the afternoon—would one Tweet it afterward with a euphemism or a rating?

        Such is the price of fame, it seems. As a woman who is proud that I had the creativity to spend an infamous afternoon with Elvis Presley, the thought of chefs as rock stars amuses me. “Will you be having fun with your groupies?” I playfully ask Jonathan Waxman, who has cooked everywhere from Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley to his own Barbuto in New York, as he headed for the Food and Wine Festival in Aspen. He protests: “No. Oh no. I’m too old. I’m an old married man.”

        “But young women love older men,” I said.       

        Jonathan smiled and shook his head. “But then you have to talk to them afterward.” Spoken like a celebrity.