cookbookshelf
intercourses
A N A P H R O D I S I A C C O O K B O O K
By Martha Hopkins and
Randall Lockridge, with photographs by Ben Fink
Terrace Publishing, 143 pages
BY ROBIN DOUGHERTY
horny all day? Or just at lunch? No matter what meal clock your libido punches, you might want to check out Martha Hopkins' and Randall Lockridge's silky new book, "Intercourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook." They've got some mighty naughty ideas about how to say lovin' with something from the oven. Or the fruit stand. Or the vegetable patch. Even the herb garden. Take Pasta with Grapes, for example. A deliciously unseemly salad of goat cheese, grapes, watercress, scallions, orange zest, olive oil and hot pasta, it's the kind of thing the book specializes in -- somewhat sophisticated tastes that can be assembled by the average idiot, er, Lothario. In fact, here's the recipe (if you need proportions, neither cooking nor sex is for you): "Toss the cheese, grapes, watercress, scallions, orange juice and zest, hot pasta and olive oil in a large bowl. Serve immediately." Or don't.
The culinary idea behind "Intercourses" is to emphasize the erotic qualities of food you might actually find in your fridge rather than, say, such fabled tidbits as rhino's horn or Spanish fly. Want phallic-shaped pleasures? Try asparagus. In fact, try Chicken and Asparagus Black Bean Enchiladas, which comes with instructions for "making the asparagus skirt found at the beginning of the chapter." Such is the playfulness of "Intercourses" that you may abandon any prudishness about such artifice as canned crescent rolls and make the Easy Strawberry Empanadas. A forgiving attitude also makes it easier to stomach the goofy testimonials by the cooks who first tested the recipes ("Anne and Eric, 6 dates in 2 weeks, Jacksonville, FL"), not to mention the sometimes goofier instructions ("Before chopping the tomatoes, take time to appreciate the feeling of their round shapes and smooth skins"). If you're an experienced cook, you might feel a tad insulted by the recipe for Black Russian Cake, which involves dumping Kahlua and creme de cacao into a package of dark-chocolate cake mix, for Pete's sake. But if you're a virgin in the kitchen, you probably won't mind. That'll be true of your dinner guests as well. While I would certainly not marry a man who served me the Pine Nut Pie in a store-bought pie crust, as the cookbook instructs, I would definitely let myself be entertained.
Robin Dougherty is a writer in Miami. RECIPE FOR PINE NUT PIE P R E V I O U S R E V I E W S "The Pleasure of Your Company" reviewed by Jonathan Hayes (04/16/97)
|
Books about sex and food come and go, but "Intercourses" is an interesting publishing-world success story. Hopkins and Lockridge, who are both 26, self-published the cookbook earlier this year from their homes in Memphis (local models, plucked from the streets, are used in the book's playfully erotic photographs). In only a few months, the book is in its third printing. Hopkins and Lockridge are well aware that not all of the ingredients will make it to the dinner table or even out of the kitchen. One chapter, called "Standing Alone on the Erogenous Zones," details dishes that can be applied directly to the body. Love-food standbys such as chocolate, strawberries, oysters and avocado are well represented, but what's more compelling are the categories you may not have thought of as erotic: basil, rosemary, black beans. (Hopkins is the daughter of Southern Baptist missionaries, which, I think, means she can damn well name anything an aphrodisiac and the rest of us ought to go along.) Like other bedside objects, "Intercourses" is subject to conflicting urges. You'll want to cook with it, but it's printed on the kind of medium-gloss paper that won't withstand the mess, much less the heat, of the kitchen. The photos -- a woman skirted with strawberries, a pregnant woman swimming in black beans, a reclining man with oysters on the half-shell spiraled around his navel -- are decidedly PG. But the recipes themselves are not.