Delicious Sex

I remember the launch lunch of Delicious Sex as if it was yesterday but it was actually 25 years ago .  We were on the second floor of JAMS, Jonathan Waxman and Melvyn and Janie Masters California-style bistro which was all the rage at the time.  Jonathan was coming straight out of Alice Waters’ kitchen and Melvyn and Janie were a hot couple with a suave English accent.

But Gael wasn’t happy.  The devastating  news of Aids had just broken and the publisher did not think it politically correct to promote a book on  sex, delicious or not.  The chapter titles all starting with F were fun, the lists a good gimmick but but not gimmicky –there was solid good advice on those pages. The chapter that  grabbed  me was called Fork Play that, if I recall correctly starts with something like: “Okay,  now you have your dinner date  so you’ve obviously seduced him with your cooking, charms or cooing,

But it also takes good conversation to keep a man.  Famed graphic artist, Milton Glaser, said to me once “at our age we should  marry for conversation but you can’t be “hard 0f listening” even if you are a little “hard of hearing” paraphrasing Amy Tan. Listening is key.

And Fork Play has lots of questions that will make even the shyest man  open up and feel brilliant and funny.  Then, if you really want him chances are he’ll want you because as Evelyn Waugh once said “We love our friends not for their ability to amuse use but for our ability to amuse them.

I’ve obviously been spending much more time reading than dating but mourning time is over so I’ think that I’ll pick up my brand-new 25th anniversary edition of Delicious Sex and will be ready to be swept of f my feet.