Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Nothing on the Julie/Julia front last night.  I went to see Al Pacino doing King of the Jews as Jerry Stiller instead.  Far more entertaining than it ought to have been.  And Marisa Tomei doing the dance of the seven veils.  Which kept Eric happy.  Then we ate leftover foie gras pot roast. I’ve been contemplating the whole sex/food conundrum this morning.  Not a new concept, I know, but in me the two strands seem to have forged a particularly Gordian knot.  Cooking for me began as a seduction technique, and one could argue I got my husband out of that experiment, because though I snagged him when I was still a picky little ninny, it was my initial forays into extreme cuisine that kept him coming.  I have thrown myself upon the sword of romantic cooking time and again, producing memorable, if not often edible, results.  The attempt to make Cornish hens in rose petal sauce comes to mind.  As does my first attempt at Cajun dark roux, stirred with a plastic spoon, to the spoon’s eternal sorrow.  Even before I cooked, or ate in any meaningful way, my idea of a hot date was dinner and a movie, or at least Gatti’s and a video.  I never liked the idea of clubbing or all-night parties, but I’d go to the favorite Chinese restaurant of the sophomore class (what was it, Quick Wok?) dressed like Mardi Gras.  But it was when I began to cook myself that things got really twisted. Something about the physicality of cooking, especially something complex and/or plain old hard to handle, is enormously sexy.  Beef marrow bones are sexy.  Chopping up a lobster is sexy.  Making a three-layer cake is sexy.  And these things are sexy despite the fact that, given the way I tend to cook and me not being as young as I once was, sex and food can often be very nearly mutually exclusive.  Whenever Eric and I have a hot date, do I buy us concert tickets, or take us out dancing?  No – I cook a wildly complex and rich dinner.  How stupid is that, I ask you?  My wildest fantasies about, oh, I don’t know, Ralph Fiennes or David Strathairn, always include food preparation as a key element, and I think that is not only because good food is the only way I can imagine, even for the sake of fantasy, that either of these men would spare a glance at me.  The cooking itself has become the end, that and the delicious anticipation of having someone else enjoy what I make.  Again, I will be a little too honest here and admit I sniff a whiff of masochism in this. (Incidentally, the Al Pacino = Jerry Stiller line was Eric's.  But I was the one who made the Jerry Stiller = King of the Jews connection.  See how we married people work?  Like a well-oiled comedy machine, is it not?)  7:31:13 AM    comment []