The New Intercourses: Because your kitchen and your bedroom should *totally* be lovers

November 27, 1:15 AMSex & Relationships ExaminerSarah Estrella

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It's been just over 10 years since the sexy photos and sexy recipes in Intercourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook forever married food and sex in my sensory-memory-making mind, and just flipping through the pages of the 10th Anniversary edition The New Intercourses is enough to call up a flood of recollections: Meals made for lovers, by lovers, and with lovers... and also a handful of meals so sexy we didn't even make it all the way through making some of the recipes before ending up on the kitchen table together.

A recent article endorsing the application of aphrodisiac foods over the holidays by Denver Sex & Romance Examiners Jordan LaRousse and Samantha Sade referenced the book as I was in the process of becoming an Examiner, and writing about it now seems like a fitting introduction: I plan to use this space to write about all things sexy. Where better to begin? The recipes in The New Intercourses are simple and seductive, and the book – both naughty and nice – makes an excellent gift for the lover on your list: Give it with a promise to make (and make the most of) some of the recipes together. 

More on those recipes in a minute, but first the photos, because, let's face it, you clicked on this story for the sexy headline and sexy photos, and they'll be the reason you buy the book and come back to it again and again. The images by photographer Ben Fink mirror the mission of the book, pairing simple ingredients with sexy naked bodies as both motivation and inspiration (each of the sample images below are from Intercourses.com; click on the images to click through to Fink's notes on the story behind each image).

Authors Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge don't really bother getting into any pseudo-science or attempting to make a case about the actual aphrodisiac properties of the ingredients in the book. What they do argue is that certain ingredients – and certain sights, smells, scents, sounds, and textures that can come from a kitchen – are inherently sensual. The very act of making a meal with seduction in mind embues the food with aphrodisiac properties, and the act of sharing such sensations can lead to all other sorts of shared wondrousness. Um, yeah... Yes, please.

Inside you'll find many great temptations making use of sexy staples: Chocolate and cloves and cinnamon, avocados and asparagus and artichokes, Chardonnay and seafood and... sausage. Because that's true too: Sometimes it's the associations a food evokes that make it aphrodisiac. Lead your lover into temptation with the Intercourses recipe for stuffed figs or sausage with fig sauce, and cast those biblical fig leaves (and all attendant metaphor) aside. Then proceed to the desserts and the recipes for edible massage oils.

Bon appetit!