Collected Posts and Excerpts from Fork Play

 

FORK PLAY November 27, 2007

 

        I thought I had written the last word on fork play.  A third of Delicious Sex, my "gourmet guide to pleasure for women and men who want to love them better," is devoted to fork play, Ford play, fur play, frog play, fjord play. Words that sound sexual when spoken languorously but are not: mango, creamy, indigo. How to Eat a Fig. (Alas, even the paperback edition Bantam, 1988 – is out of print, available only on line for 99 cents.) Then I listened to the seduction philosophy of The Wily Gourmand.

 

BITE: November 26, 2007

 

Sex After Dinner for the Wily Gourmand

 

        "Strip House is the sexiest restaurant in New York,” our pal Francesco announces last week over dinner. “When I take a date to the Strip House I know I’m going to make out.”  (Let me call him Francesco to protect his future in the bedroom.) To be quite candid, Francesco is the  teflon Romeo, in and out of love constantly, an outright chauvinist pig, in fact, but as a pal, really fun, full of zest and unfailingly loyal. This is not an exposé, This is a service column on seduction…a subject I thought I’d mastered till Francesco spilled all.)

 

       “The Strip House,” I am shocked. “The Strip House for great steak, yes. But romantic? It’s noisy and full of suits gobbling meat. What’s sexy? Photos of strippers?  Red flocked walls?”

 

        “When a woman says she wants meat, she’s already telling you something.” he says. “She doesn’t mind showing you her appetite.  I ask for a two in the back. There’s nothing to intimidate her.  She’s comfortable.  That’s the secret. You order the rib eye for two. The truffled potatoes.  That chocolate cake, of course.  She is charmed. You can be sure she’s coming to bed with you.

 

       “Or maybe she only eats fish,” he continues, clearly quite pleased with himself.   “I don’t take her to Le Bernardin.  Too intimidating.  Or Esca. I love Esca.  But the crudo and pastas she never heard of might make her uncomfortable.  I take her to Aquagrill. It’s still very good, lively, full of people and the menu is familiar.  She’s going to be comfortable, easy, open.    

 

        “The Modern is very sexy too,” he goes on, watching me take notes. “I should write an article about this but I would make too many enemies.”  He sighs. I’ve watched Francesco in two long affairs with seriously smart and accomplished women being his outrageously sexist self wondering why they put up with it.  So it’s not that he’s only into the one-night stand, or mindless bimbos. But when he’s dating, it seems, the after-dinner digestif  is sex. “Yes, the Modern.  A certain kind of girl will be very impressed. She likes art. It’s expensive. She could never go there on her own.  It looks out at the Sculpture Garden. You just know she is ready. 

 

        “Jean Georges at lunch could not be more sexy.  She knows she looks good in that light. That food. The surprising combinations. The incredible tastes. So sensuous. Too much wine. She is transported  By three o’clock she doesn’t even remember she is in New York.

 

        “I have given much thought to this question of romantic restaurants. In each case you have to study the girl and find the right restaurant for her. One If  by Land, Two If  By Sea.  Forget it. A joke.  The Terrace. Never. Never. The minute you walk in she knows what you have in mind. You might as well write her a note ‘Tonight I expect to do it.’ It’s too obvious.”

 

        Was there ever a man so unabashedly calculated?  I find myself mesmerized by the conceit, his irrepressible ego,  “And where would you take me?”

 

       He does not hesitate for a nanosecond.  “I would take you to Masa, of  course, side by side at the bar. All those little tastes…the sighs…the sharing of the textures.  Oh yes.  No problem.  That would be perfect for you.”

 

        I feel myself blushing all over. Is he a sexual terrorist or is he just an unquenchable Don Juan? I can’t help urging him on, proposing possible conquests. A sampling:

 

        A European woman:  “Bianca where they know me. The chef will send out extra dishes. She will like that it is not too expensive.  Or maybe I’ll bring her to Tribeca. She will think I am an artist. Blaue Gans. The goulash, the sausages make her comfortable. She feels at home.”

 

        A sophisticated New Yorker: “Some place she can’t get in on her own. The Box would impress her.”

 

        Newly divorced 40-year-old: “Gilt.  She will remember when it was Le Cirque and it will be like she never left.”

 

        A Dominican woman:  “I don’t take her to the Bronx or Washington Heights. That’s insulting  I take her to Paladar. Everyone speaks Spanish.  Arun comes out of the kitchen. He flirts with her. It’s a great Latino feeling, food she recognizes.  She is comfortable.”

 

        Euro trash:  “Asia de Cuba.  She would have a funny cocktail and the Philippe Starck look and people she recognizes. She’s at home.

 

        “What if she’s kosher,” he suddenly cries. “Where will I take her?”

 

        “Le Marais is a kosher steakhouse,” I tell him. How about Renee Zellweger?

 

        “I think she wants to talk and be talked to. I would take her to Tia Pol, impossible to get in but I would arrange it.  She would be impressed. It’s not expensive but it’s serious food.”

 

        Scarlet Johannsen? “She’s a smoker. So I would have to find her a place where she can smoke.  That would impress her.” (Try Cipriani Downtown, I suggest. “They think they’re in Italy.”)

 

        Nicole Kidman? “ L’Impero.  It feels sexy, isolated from the city. Food is very good. Not so expensive.  Perfect for Nicole Kidman.”

 

        Sharon Stone: “The Four Seasons for lunch in the Grill.”

 

        “But how would you get a table?” I want to know.

 

        “Are you kidding? I’m with Sharon Stone.”

 

        “My problem is Barbra Streisand,” he blurts out.  “I have given it a lot of thought.  But I can’t find the right place.  I thought maybe Elio’s.  Politicians go there.”

 

        “Why not the Four Seasons for her too?”

 

        “No, she would not want to be on display.”

 

        “How about a hot dog on the Staten Island ferry,” my guy, The Road Food Warrior suggests.

 

        “I got it,” Francesco suddenly cries.  “I got it.  “Manducati’s.  I would take Barbara Streisand to Manducati’s in Long Island City."

 

        “And where should I take George Clooney?” I ask.

 

        “Robuchon,” he snaps back.  “It’s perfect for him. You two sit at the bar side by side, very close…you order. You choose a great red wine.  Everything that comes is wonderful. He is impressed. You might want to reserve a room upstairs in advance.”

 

        Francesco is getting to me now.  I actually feel like I’ve been unfaithful.  Twice.  Kind of fun.  Like the good old days.

***

BITE: December 3, 2007

More Sexy Table Games

 

       Last week’s essay on advanced fork play – a listing of dining scenarios for seduction inspired by the unabashed boastings of my friend Francesco, the Gourmand Don Juan, stirred quite a stew of email. Several romantics agreed with Francesco that “Jean Georges at lunch could not be more sexy.”  Francesco had cited the combined impact of great light, surprising combinations and incredible tastes from the kitchen, plus “too much wine…by three o’clock she doesn’t even remember she is in New York.”

 

        One woman wrote: “It’s always the same at Jean George…very sensuous, sexy. I go late, about 2 p.m. There’s such luxury, such languor, that light, the exquisite food. I always order Savennieres, a particularly sensuous Loire wine. The whole technique of service is so seductive. It makes you feel pampered as if they are conspiring for you to end up in bed.”

 

        Restaurant consultant Eddie Schoenfeld singled out “the sexy foods to order:  uni on toast, sensational bruléed foie gras and the classic scallops with raisin emulsion.  A reader who chose the nom de forchette, a Reformed Madame Bovary, said an especially sensuous lunch at Jean Georges had inspired her to take her husband one night for dinner.  All went well till the check came and she took out her own credit card to pay.  He froze. “He said my paying made him uncomfortable. I didn’t realize he was so old-fashioned,” she wrote. “It was a lot of bang for the buck,” she concluded.

 

        I emailed back, “But you said he froze.”

 

        “I forgot to say by the time we got home, he had thawed.”

 

        Wine merchant Josh Wesson of Best Cellars emailed two top choices for an evening meant for seduction: “Esquina downstairs. Drinking boatloads of mescal in a candlelit cave brings a near certainty of hot monkey love. Or Artisanal, where I order two different fondues with two different wines.  Putting hot gooey food in someone else’s mouth is the next best thing that leads to the best thing.”

 

        For lovers in that uncontrollable passion stage, Schoenfeld mentioned a high-backed love seat at the sushi bar at Megu in midtown. For clandestine lovers he recommends a partially curtained-off table in the rear of Sakagura, the izakaya-style sake resto hidden in an east 40’s sub-basement.

 

        For an investment of just $10, his “test of true lust,” means getting a bagel and lox and a coffee at the Fairway Café in Red Hook, then hanging out on their deck where there’s a good-as-it-gets view of the New York harbor and later in the day, the sunset too. Half an hour here with the person you lust after and you’ll know right away if it’s the right stuff.”

 

        “For a certain kind of nightcap, there’s no place like Milk & Honey in the city, period,” writes She Loves NY.  “Also quite good are the lounge at Perry Street and, if one wants to look a bit further north, the lobby of the Regency can be very conducive to consent at a certain, late hour.”

 

        Adam Trident, echoing Don Juan Francesco’s philosophy, suggests “it all depends on the object of desire.”  Trident frequents Orso, where “great food, intimate atmosphere, famous friends coming to my table is pretty successful for after dinner mambo.” He likes the bar at Compass for “great, reasonably priced food, good wine list, intimate mood-lighting. And for me, a short elevator ride to paradise. Great on a wintry night.”  He confesses: “Last place I took someone was Il Buco. Successful seduction, not-so-successful relationship.”

 

        Lower East Side Mitch wrote: “Well, of course, there’s PDT on St. Mark’s Place…and if your date will eat a Chang Dog (deep fried, bacon wrapped, kimchee purée topped), you can pretty much seal the deal right there!”

 

        And Francesco himself who started all this emailed to say he loved his story but wished I had not characterized him as a chauvinist pig…“I would have preferred something like ‘archaic and incorrect’,” he wrote.

***

BITE January 7, 2008

 

The Sushi Counter:  Seat of Seduction?

        A longtime friend, recently divorced, not strictly a Don Juan, rather a passionate student of women, emailed me his thoughts on sushi as seductive:

 

        “‘There is no place like the [French] table to reconcile mind, body and spirit to a life that is necessarily too short, too indifferent and too chaste,’ wrote Brillat Savarin, the famous 18th century food historian.  My version of that in 2008 would be ‘there is no place like the sushi counter for preparing the mind, body and spirit for an evening that will be anything but chaste.’  A great sushi bar, that’s where I would begin my evening of seduction,” he began.

 

        “It used to be that caviar was the signal that conveyed the ‘I want you’ message. Today it’s different. You can tell her she’s priceless and you’re in the know in one sentence. Tell her you want to take her to Kana Yama on 2nd Avenue and 11th Street and sit at the counter.  Plan in advance to make sure the chef saves you a toro rib cage, which will magically appear minutes after you sit down.  It comes raw. You first scrape the flesh off the bones and then the chef takes the ribcage back to the kitchen to be grilled.  When it’s back at the table and everyone in the restaurant is straining their neck to see where the fabulous aroma is coming from, lean over and tell your date that the sense of smell is really an important part of eating Japanese food and, by the way, you like the way she smells too.

 

        “Sharing a sensuous meal is sexy in every language. Somehow, doing it with sushi seems to offer infinite opportunities for your sensual seduction. How can you fail?  The sensuality of raw fish.  The knowing looks and oohs and ahs you share, together with wasabi that flies to your brain, will get the most hardened investment banker cooing and gushing within minutes.  Eating with your fingers – it’s an opening line to talk about sucking fingers – while letting your knees collide each time you turn sideways to wipe that little bit of soy sauce off your partners lower lip – are perks of sitting at the counter. Knowing the sushi chef and making him your partner in seduction increases your chances of success.  At the right moment he can offer the uni, then the fish eyeball, and ultimately soft seaweed with the suggestion that it’s tradition that you feed each other, which if not technically true, will at least seem very probable after several glasses of sake.

 

        “And don’t forget this: Nobody pours their own sake.  Each pours for the other.  The receiver raises his/her cup in a gesture of  ‘I will take what you give me.’ This is followed by the reciprocal pouring and a little aside, ‘I can’t wait for you to give me more.’ If you’re high enough, this line will seem subtle.  Once you get the back-and-forth going, the sushi counter will be rocking. And you can take that momentum into a taxi.”

 

        Putting hot gooey food in someone else’s mouth is the next best thing that leads to the best thing.

Do you have a favorite spot for seduction? Email me why it works and I’ll post it on BITE.

***