True Story #1: Once upon a time, years ago now, I fell in love with a man and I couldn’t fuck him.
True Story #2: Tonight, he is coming over for dinner, and I am going to foodfuck him.
Before I go on, let me give you a little backstory. He was funny, witty, clever, charming, and handsome, and I fell a little bit in love with him the first time I saw him.
But I really fell for him after he sent me an e-mail– a long, chatty narrative about some funny story that had happened during a business trip. I still remember that moment, sitting at the computer screen in my tiny office. I remember because it was the moment I knew I was in big trouble, because I was falling in love with this man. Hard. Fast.
His voice in the e-mail and in the essay was so charming, so funny. I spent too long responding, typing too much. I deleted the whole thing. Then re-typed it. Then deleted most of it. After at least an hour of this tortured composing, I finally sent my response, now just a few lines, carefully composed to be casual on a literal level with just a hint of flirtation– if he was looking for it. And I pressed “Send.”
When I saw his name in my in-box a few hours later, my whole body responded: my stomach, as I used to say in high school, flipped over. That exchange was the first of many, as it turned out.
There were lots of excellent reasons why we couldn’t sleep together, the big one being I was married.
There was another reason– a big one. As he put it, sitting in my car one night as we pondered the wisdom of kissing there in the dark, under the stars, he didn’t want to foul our relationship with infidelity. And so we resisted each others’ bodies with, looking back, what I now deem as admirable restraint.
This was before texting, so we didn’t sext each other. But we did send each other long e-mails talking about our lives, our days. We shared with each other who we were. I couldn’t go even a few minutes without sneaking back to the computer room and checking my e-mail, which didn’t do anything to help me stay present to my marriage.
And every meal I cooked dinner for my husband, I wished I was cooking for this man. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, my parents had a romantic dinner every weekend. Oh, how I wanted to cook for this man, feed him by candlelight.
I lived in this erotic haze for a year. Knowing we couldn’t have sex, that he refused to sleep with me because I was married, made my physical yearnings for him that much more poignant; my e-mails, which turned to love letters, that much more charged with all my desire.
When my marriage ended, he and I tried to make it work, but for various reasons I won’t go into now, our relationship, and our friendship, failed.
When we reunited on Saturday over a leisurely, slightly sodden brunch (we drank Current Affairs– vodka-soaked currents, creme de cassis, sparkling wine) on Saturday at Spring Hill (yes, there was a foodgasm– he ordered the quinoa waffles with sausage gravy, chicken nuggets, and maple syrup– unfuckingbelievable.) I found myself just as emotionally, physically, and mentally attracted to him as I ever was.
And the next day, at the farmer’s market, fondling produce and ogling the pork chops at Seabreeze with their lovely rim of fat, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I bought a pair of the pork chops. I picked up some blood-red tulips. I found some darling little baby carrots with their delicate stems still attached.
And I e-mailed him, asking him if he was free for dinner.
So tonight, I am making him grilled pork chops.
I’ll serve them with a sort of weeknight cassoulet: I have bacon and pancetta from Seabreeze, which I will saute with an onion from Willie Green’s in raw milk butter. I’ll mix that decadence with cannelloni beans and meat and bone broth from Seabreeze farm, heat it gently in the oven, then top it with bread crumbs and fresh-cracked Parmesan.
The sweet little baby carrots I’ll blanche, quickly, and then douse with fresh lemon juice, a little sugar, salt, and fresh-cracked pepper, then let them caramelize a bit.
And I’ll saute the braising mix from Willie Green’s in olive oil until the leaves are cooked through and crispy at their tips.
Oh yes, I have planned dinner and a seduction.
There’s only one problem. I’m tired of sex.
Yes, like the Weezer song, I find myself asking the question, “Why can’t I be making love?” Cheesy, I know.
So tonight, there will not be sex.
One of my friends was like, “Then what’s the point?”
Foodfucking, dear readers, can mean many different things to different people. For example, my friend Lori, who is a lesbian, told me once, “Food-fucking means something very different to a lesbian than it does to a straight woman.”
Point taken. This particular food fucking tonight will not involve the penetration of any orifices, his or mine, with vegetables.
But it will involve me making love to him with food. And that is the point.
