Cooking up chocolate passion

Photo by Chuck Stevens.
Ugh. The dreaded Valentine's Day is coming soon. If you're lucky enough to find someone in the Personals who you'd actually even consider licking chocolate off of, here are Brain Dancer's own heart-melting recipes to set the perfect stage for a romantic evening that is guaranteed to entice your special date into the kitchen—-and the bedroom.

If you’ve seen the movie Chocolat with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, you experienced a "taste" of a culinary aphrodisiac at work. It was a slow, lush movie showing plenty of sexy shots -- close-ups and action shots -- of one of the world's most well-known and glamorous aphrodisiacs: chocolate. The second main character Viane (Binoche) opens a chocolate shop in a provincial, abstemious French village. From the minute she sets to work making the chocolate, we witness languid ribbons of chocolate cascading from well-crafted pots into delicate china, and countless other sensual scenarios: wet lips smacking, tongues licking, people guiltily touching their fingertips in chocolate and licking them clean.

With chocolate as its sexy centerfold, the film (besides being one big chocolate commercial) accented the connection between food and sensuality. A decadent dinner could be the secret romance weapon that will bring a potential lover closer to your heart.

Date by date, nibble by nibble, there are many elements in cooking up a passionate meal:

Sensuality. In Chocolat, the food was prepared deliberately, deliciously, with care and attention, and not a little sensuality (ooh, smack, lick, aaah-h-h).

Sharing. Sometimes the characters shared conversation; sometimes they shared the little "guilty" pleasures with looks askance as if they were being quite naughty together. Food brings people together.

Caring. Most people read a partner's act of cooking for them as "caring." If your partner has a favorite meal, a favorite flavor; make the effort to produce it at home yourself. Guys cook for your ladies, ladies cook for your guys; or you can both share a bottle of wine, get a little tipsy, cook for each other and lick the cream sauce or the chocolate mousse off each other’s fingers. You might get impatient and never get around to eating!

Memories. The scent and texture of food is a powerful memory maker. You probably know this if you've passed by a bakery or restaurant and found your mind suddenly snapping back to another time in your life. If you create a meal or a dessert for an evening on which sparks fly, those food scents will be indelibly planted in your lover's mind for all time. In the future, you'll need only have that meal simmering on the stove and your partner will be getting aroused as they walk in the door.

Smooth, creamy textures. In the food world, they talk about “mouth feel.” A romantic meal has textures that are rich, smooth, creamy and buttery. Coconut milk, creamy cheeses, raw seafood, custards, sauces, whipped cream and of course, chocolate are like velvet on the tongue.

Light on the stomach (and nose!). A romantic dinner should be light and energizing – not heavy and rich. Stay away from foods that are hard to digest, pungent or just plain smelly. Avoid brie, sauerkraut, garlic, blue cheese, raw onions, curry and (for the obvious reasons) hard to digest foods like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and beans!

Aphrodisiacial. Some foods can increase energy, get the blood flowing, heat up the body. Legendary aphrodisiac foods include asparagus, wild mushrooms, raw oysters, ginger, vanilla beans, tropical fruits, red wine and of course, chocolate.

Serving your lover with sensual style:

Whatever it is you create, the next thing to consider is how to serve it. After all, this is lust we're talking about.

Lights, candles, action! Dim the lights low, or drape lampshades with scarves to soften the light, scatter the room with inexpensive tea candles and spin some exotic trance-like Buddah Bar beats, Billie Holliday or passionate piano music on the stereo.

A change of scene:<.span> Eat on cushions around the coffee table in the living room…on a flotaki rug, in a bean bag chair, in the tub, in the garden…in front of the fire.

Foreplay: A little dessert before dinner? Ask your partner to cover their eyes with their hands and serve it to him or her yourself. Hold it just under their nose and ask them to inhale the scent first. Make them eat slowly, make them lick and suck your fingers. Ad lib from here.

For couples only: Serve it on your naked body or on his naked body. Desert is optional and perhaps unnecessary!

A passionate spring menu:

Chilled Champagne
Raw oysters on the half shell with fresh lemon
Spring Salad with Baked Goat Cheese
Shrimp in Pastis with Fresh Fennel
Sensual Saffron Rice
Coconut Gelato With Fresh Mangos and Whole Strawberries
Gingered Chocolate Sauce

Spring Salad With Warm Goat Cheese

2 large handfuls of mixed baby greens, rinsed, dried and chilled.
One log of creamy goat cheese or two small goat cheese rounds (crottins)
Herbes de Provence (a dried mixture of marjoram, sage, savory and rosemary)
Olive Oil for drizzling cheese
3 tbsp. Hazelnut or virgin olive Oil
1 tsp. Shallot, finely minced
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
Freshly ground pepper
Sea salt
A handful of toasted pinenuts

1. Slice the goat cheese into 1 inch thick circles. Toss each round in olive oil, sprinkle with the herb mixture and a grating of fresh pepper. The cheese should be quite thoroughly coated with herbs.
2. Heat the broiler until very hot. Place cheeses on a pan and grill under the broiler until lightly browned on top.
3. Place nut or oilive oil, shallot, vinegar, pepper and salt into a salad bowl and whisk until creamy. Toss ligntly with the greens.
4. Arrange half of the greens on a plate, top with warm cheese and nuts, and a grating of pepper. Serve while still warm.

Flaming Shrimp in Pastis with Fresh Fennel

1-1/4 lbs. Tiger prawns or jumbo shrimp, peeled & deveined – leave the shells on the tails.
3 Tablespoons Pastis liqeur (Pernod or Ricard)
3 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 tablespooons olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 fennel bulb, sliced as thinly as possible
1 Tablespoon chopped parsley
1 Tablespoon minced fennel greens
Sea salt & freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat. Add the shrimp and cook about 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until just barely pink. Remove from pan.
2. Add the fennel and shallot, sauté gently until soft. Return the shrimp to the pan. Pour in the pastis; remove from the heat and flambé. (That means throw a lit match into the pan and shake the pan until the flames die down and the alcohol burns off.)
3. When the flames die, add the lemon juice, parsley, fennel greens and chives and season with salt and pepper.

Serve with good French bread or saffron rice to soak up the fantastic sauce.

Sensual Saffron Rice

Jasmine rice and saffron perfume your kitchen with a light and delightful incense and the color of saffron rice is a vivid contrast with the pink shrimp and green herbs.

2 cups jasmine rice
4 cups of water, soak a pinch of saffron in the water
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 tbsp. minced parsley

1. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed, one-quart saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Add garlic, stir briefly until translucent. Do not burn! If you burn the garlic, wash the pan and start over again – burnt food is the opposite of aphrodisiacal!
2. Add rice and stir in the oil until rice is translucent and grains are coated with oil.
3. Add water, increase heat, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes until water is absorbed.
4. Fluff rice with a fork. Toss with minced parsley before serving.


Creamy Coconut Sorbet

The rich creamy cool texture of this very simple tropical fruit sorbet will soothe your lover’s tongue. The bananas should be completely covered with black spots so they are very sweet before freezing.

1 8 oz can coconut milk, chilled
2 tbsp. maple syrup or other sweetener of choice
3 very ripe bananas, frozen.
1 tsp. Real vanilla

1. Mix all of the ingredients in a blender rapidly until smooth.
2. Eat immediately or chill before serving.
3. Serve a scoop of sorbet on a plate, with a few fresh mango slices, a berry, and drizzle the plate with warm gingered chocolate sauce. Dip whole strawberries into the sauce and feed them to your lover.

Spicy Gingered Chocolate Sauce

The best part about making this sauce is licking it off each other’s fingers!

1 six-ounce semisweet chocolate bar
1 tbsp. olive oil
honey to taste
2 tsp. Finely grated fresh ginger root
1 tsp. Real vanilla extract
3 tbsp. water
pinch of sea salt

1. In a double boiler, break up the chocolate bar into small pieces, add water, olive oil and honey to taste.
2. Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until smooth. Do not overheat.
3. Squeeze the ginger juice through a fine cloth (a clean handkerchief or cheesecloth) into the sauce. Add vanilla. Taste for sweetness and adjust the flavorings as needed. Add a very small pinch of sea salt to taste. (The salt makes the sauce seem buttery.)


All recipes are originals by BrainDancer. Please refer back to this blog url and give me credit if you republish them.

The disastrous effects of Match.com

"The Disastrous Effects of Match.com and What Women Can Do About It" is an essay that appeared last week in the Washington Post sending shockwaves through the internet dating industry.

It's about time that someone in the mainstream media had the guts to admit what dozens of bloggers have been observing for years now -- online dating has drastically changed the ways we relate offline by giving everyone a false sense of unlimited opportunities. (Or why "Online Dating Sucks" returns more than 2,000 hits in Google including a multitude of blogs devoted to the subject.)

While the anonymous writer of this essay is pretty much in alignment with what I've been bitching and moaning about for months now, I do have to say she unfairly excluded the male side of this story. (Men complain that women are all out to find a venture capitalist, millionaire or a guy who looks like Brad Pitt.) Here's an excerpt from the essay:

Jennifer Aniston. Christie Brinkley. Sheryl Crow. Teri Hatcher. Either dumped or cheated on in a most humiliating and public way.

Every woman in the dating world has thought, "If it can happen to her, it can happen to me." While he's snoring away, we think quietly at night about what we can do to make sure it doesn't happen to us.

We respond by trying to make our stomachs flatter, our boobs bigger, our faces prettier, and our clothes tighter and more revealing. We do everything possible to please our man. You prefer French cooking? Mais oui, mon cher! You want my hair long? No problem, I'll get a hair extension. Spending part of your vacation with buddies? Go have a good time. You don't want to be with my family on Christmas? I'll see you on New Year's Eve. Is that OK or would you prefer some other time? Do you like my mani-pedi'd, spray on tanned, liposuctioned, Pilates body? Can't commit? Oh, that's right. You're just not that into me. Or her. Or her. Or her.

What the hell has happened? Three words. Match dot com. Match.com and other online dating services have given men access to thousands and thousands of women in every city who look just as great in jeans and a little black dress (the requirement in every man's profile), a smorgasbord of women each one more delicious to devour than the next...


Essay:

If you can get over your ovaries, I'll discipline my testicles

This personal ad in "Men Seeking Women" on Craiglist is outrageous. I love the headline. Will men ever discipline their testicles? Will we ever stop being ruled by our baser, biological instincts and rise above them to a new level of conscious relating? Or is that just too new age woo-woo for this guy?

-------------------

I'm looking for a SF city woman that can enjoy the relationship in the present, without too much of agenda and trading the futures. If you care if we fcuk or don't fcuk on the first date, if you are looking for a potential husband or if you care about my tax bracket I am not interested in you. Also, to be stimulated, I need extremely clever, eloquent, literate and educated, sexy and sex loving, fit woman, not fucked up with new age/mysticism/religion, without TV and with identity independent from consumer items, pop culture or class (and if you can differentiate between your yours, you'res and youres, that makes me mad with passion.)

Obviously, the intersection of the above specs among SF female population is near-zero. Maybe 6-7, but they are all taken, with a long waiting list.

So what we need here is a freak accident, a probabilistic singularity, a counter-intuitive event against all odds, something less probable than politician uttering the truth, that one of those is reading this stuff.

I am degreed, wide interests, non-mainstream, tall & fit, good looking, big ick, and addicted to improbable outcomes.

Please use a few caps in the reply.

Gwyneth's dating disasters and "Dealbreakers"

Click here for Gwyneth Paltrow's charming and sometimes hilarious new short film about dating disasters, "Dealbreaker."

The lesson is here that no man is perfect. What can we live with? Are women just too picky? As Janis Joplin said: "Everyone is messed up when you get inside their head. It's just a matter of degree!"

What's interesting to me is that Paltrow both <` href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/movies/10gwyn.html?ex=1281326400&en=26ad6d19c9f38140&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">directed and wrote the script for this film, so we might assume it's at least somewhat based on her own real life dating experiences with men. When you consider that she's dated Ben Afleck, Luke Wilson and Brad Pitt among others, you have to wonder which characters in this film might be reflections of the dating blunders of her leading men.

Perfect Date Movie (for guys)

One of my guy friends thinks that horror movies are the perfect date flick. His strategy? "She gets so grossed out or scared that she cuddles up to you and begs you to turn the movie off. Then you have your way with her!"

Men can be so devious!

When looks can kill a date

Once I was three hours late for a date--but my potential suitor was more miffed that I don't look like my photograph than the fact that he stood outside all afternoon shivering in the fog.

Face it, looks matter in the online dating scene. A lot. Too much, I think. (Did I mention that you were a lot smaller and shorter than I expected? That your hairstyle was kind of conservative for my taste? Did that make me disappointed? No, but your crestfallen facial expression sure did. It was obvious that SOMETHING WAS WRONG.) Ooops, I guess I should have postponed this one until the my acne facial peel recovered. Ooops, I guess I should have blowdried my hair instead of appearing with it in its natural curly state.

But ooops-- dont' you think that you're idea, arriving just after running the Bay to Breakers race was a bad idea. (You did warn me you'd be "a little bit sweaty.")

Being thought of as a good looking woman most of my adult life, it's difficult for me to accept the idea that I get rejected on the basis of my looks so often when I meet someone in the personals. (I'm quite attractive. An online date fell flat...but the very next day a man asked me for my number in Whole Foods Market while I was standing next to the bananas.)

No, I think there's just something warped about meeting someone online. It warps the expectation meter.

There was one man who hit on me constantly at a dance event. A few months later we stumbled on each other in the personals so we went out, and it fell flat.

He said: "I'm not feeling any chemistry." What? You were trying to put your hands all over me when you met me "out there". But then we do the standard, uptight internet date and it just whithers and dies. There's just something downright toxic about Internet dates.

The expectation level is ridiculous. Why does every man think he "deserves" a 10? Why do they all think they "deserve" a woman ten years younger? One man met me in a date and the first said: "Your hair isn't red! You lied!"

Looking good in a photograph is not the same thing as looking good in real life. As an image-creator, as a person who meets and mingles with and works with people in the public eye, we know this is true. At first, when I saw some celebrities I've met...oh my God. Some of them looked so shockingly, horrifyingly different than their glam airbrushed photographs. But over time, as their wit and personality and verve and life emerged...those frumpy middle aged women with the cavernous wrinkles and those middle aged paunchy men with the bags under their eyes became sexy and vital and attractive. Because beauty and vitality really come from within...from our confidence and our personality. And that vitality can vary greatly from day to day, depending on our moods, the weather, what we're doing, where we are and who we're with.

I've met some stunningly attractive men from these ads...but that didn't make the sparks fly. It all comes from within. It's ineffable. Indefinable. You can't put your finger on it but you know it's there...when it's there.

Unfortunately, I happen to be photogenic--but variably attractive (that is, sometimes I look great, sometimes horrible. I'm not consistently gorgeous from day to day and I know it). I have great photographs...all taken during those peak moments when I was in love, my hair was having a good day, on the beach, on vacation. Well of course I look better in that light than I will when I've been sitting in traffic for two hours rushing to get to a date, or I've been working all day, or we're feeling lonely and rejected. Rush hour isn't usually a Kodak moment.

Is that too much to ask? Do I have to be THE LOVE OF THIS GUYS LIFE to spend some time hiking and driving to the country and having some fun? Do we have to be lonely just because we're not perfect? If we all lowered our standards we'd be a lot happier -- and these websites would be out of business.

So I have a new dating rule -- no coffee dates. No sweaty hikes. I am only going to meet men in situations where I can dress nicely, where the room is intimate, where it's appropriate for me to wear a miniskirt and heels, where the mood is relaxed, where chemistry might have a chance to spark. The only successful Internet dates I've had (success being measured by the first date leading to a second and then a third) were drinks in a quiet bar, or intimate dinners, at night, wine served. The hit and run 25 minute job interview style coffee date has a dismal track record.

Learning how to be in your body

Yesterday I spent the day at the "Embodied Community Day." I know that sounds (groan) sooooo Californian.

The invitation promised: a day that is "fun, juicy, inexpensive and open to everyone who'd like to find out what’s possible when grounded, empowered, open-hearted people come together." There would be an "enliven your body playshop, where we would learn new ways to express your essence through movement, dance, yoga and touch and deepen our emotional connections. Then an Empowered Intimacy workshop led by Scott Longwell promising "new skills and new ways of being that will enable you to be connected, free, and empowered in romantic relationships, at work, and in Community." All capped off with an Intimacy Lounge of "Sultry Dance and Sacred Chilling."

I was introduced to this group a week ago when I attended one Whole Body's free David Deida video screenings. It was an interesting concept -- workshop leader Scott screened the Deida film to the group and then lead exercises from the video, or exercises that took a riff on Deida's renowned teachings on sacred intimacy and we experienced them first hand.

I have heard so much about Deida lately (maybe I'm just the last one on my block -- he's written ten bestselling books) and wandered into the seminar to learn what all the hype is about. I came away from the evening feeling a better sense of what it means to be a woman, to be fully present in my body and my femininity and how creating that presence and openness makes me significantly more attractive and available to the right kind of men.

I was impressed with this group of people. First of all, they were definitely far healther and more attractive than average -- very centered in their bodies, physical and fit. An uncommon number of them seem to be acrobats, contact improv dancers or yogis, and they exude a confident, self-assured presence.

At first the room seemed to be filled with people younger than me, but later I learned that most of the participants were in their mid-30s to late 40s and simply looked a lot younger than their actual age. The ages ranged up to a man in his 70s.

It was raining here in the Bay Area so I decided, hey, why not -- and made the long drive south to the light, airy white loft in a run down block of Oakland where Whole Body Wisdom has it's events. A girl named Jamie Love with a sparkly heart painted on her cheek greeted me, and I deposited my shoes in the heap at the door, and padded across the patchwork of thick oriental rugs and sat on a cushion in the packed room.

As I arrived, the group was concluding the playshop where they were doing acroyoga and contact improvisational dance exercises.

Then workshop leader Scott was moving into the Deida-inspired intimacy sessions.

Scott said: "Remember a time when you weren't fully empowered." He's sitting on a futon in front of the group, flanked by a thin, athletic man in his late 40s and a beautiful younger woman with waist length blonde hair who strokes his hand as he speaks and "holds space." She beams radiantly as if just being in this man's presence is energizing for her, though I have to wonder if it's just an ego trip for him to have the loveliest girl in the room practically sitting in his lap as he lectures.

Scott has a confident, self-satisfied air about him, and a big enigmatic cheshire grin. He's a big man with a powerful build and a shiny shaved head. He reminds me of a New Age Mr. Clean, here to clean up our karma and scrub our inhibitions away. He tapes our answers to that question with a small silver electronic device that beeps on and off.

"The thing that we think is ugliest about us...when we share it, it's no longer hidden, and that in turn makes us more attractive," Scott says. One woman in the room says her weakness is rescuing drug addicted men who end up living in her house and taking her money. An attractive silver-haired elderly woman says her fear is that her body will never make love again. In turn, we confess to strangers, our deepest weakness. When it is my turn, I say: "My pattern is that I get in relationships with fixer upper men -- and buy fixer upper houses." The room giggles nervously.

"A lot of us choose a relationship based on the question: "Do I feel safe?" he says. "Choosing someone weaker than us makes us feel more powerful, but it's a lie. We want to be in control so we hire someone not as smart as us." Scott, who formerly was a management consultant in the corporate world, and still exudes this confident executive power over a room, says: "It takes a lot of confidence to hire experts who are smarter than you in areas where you are weak. In love, and work, you want someone with different skills, but more powerful."

Scott then confesses to us that he was picked on as a child, and very relf-conscious as a young man because he was bigger than everyone else. In confessing this secret to us, he did become more human, more real, and in turn, more attractive. (Perhaps this is why we like to learn the relationship woes of celebrities and relish in the marital distress of stars. It makes them more human, vulnerable and thus even more attractive to us.)

Scott points out a sign on the wall: "Often others see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Our deepest gift is often underneath our biggest fear."

We then moved into an exercise where we were asked a question by a partner and then in turn, had to answer the question first as if we were coming from our head, then as if we were centered in our heart, and finally, as if we were one big genital. "Come on, answer this one as if you're one big dick or one big juicy yoni," Scott joked. The room roared with laughter as put our whole bodies into answering that question. My partner was a thin, nervous guy who seemed forever stuck in his head, and I instantly "got" how that when we respond to a sexual need with an intellectual response we're not able to communicate effectively to our partners and then just come across as wimpy and unattractive. (I found myself totally turned off by his rigid, almost robotic responses.)

Later that night, we moved into the sacred chillspace -- which by the end of the night had steamy windows and was starting to look more like a high school dance, with couples making out in the shadowy corners of the room on floor cushions. A beautiful man taught me how to do contact Salsa dance (a variation on Contact Improvisation, which is depicted in the photograph above.)

I've been opening myself and my heart more to intimate energetic connection with others, and now that I am less self conscious and defensive I'm surprisingly a much better dancer. I was able to feel my partner's energy and sense what direction he wanted to lead me. Instead of stepping all over his feet, I was flowing, utterly in the moment of what we were doing. I suddenly understood why dance is the ultimate seduction, and the best way to feel out a potential partner for compatibility. Somewhere along the line we've become too intellectual and too centered in our heads and thus unable to listen to our hearts. I guess the Whole Body Workshop was at it's core about learning how to return to this kind of playful presence when we interact with each other.

The community playground that Scott creates promises the "opportunity to be playfully serious and seriously playful, an expansion of your ability to be open, loving and powerful in the face of real world challenges." I think one could be cynical and say that's all just a bunch of West Coast new age double speak, and there were a few newcomers to the event who uncomfortably admitted they felt that way about it, but in the end, I'd say his words just about sum it up. By the end of the night, I felt more alive and present in my body than I have in a long time, and less self conscious about my inadequacies.

To learn more about Whole Body Wisdom and the Church of Soul, visit: www.wholebodywisdom.com