Love Doesn't Stink, Actually it Smells Appetizing

Eating and the act of physical love are easily comparable: Meals, like their corollary, can be long, elaborate affairs full of tastes, flavors and nuance. If they are good enough, merely remembering will make you happy years later thinking about the event. Every so often, an occasion is remarkable in the fact everything falls in place easily, naturally - like finding a really good restaurant on vacation – an inauspicious storefront hides near perfect food served with a local vintage; the day, the meal are all about goodwill and happenstance. Or things can be new, remember the first time you tasted Pho or Thai food? Sweet, hot, full of new flavors or the time someone made coffee with cardamom or sweetened the your cup with sugar perfumed by vanilla so that there was something both exotic and familiar in your morning ritual? Sometimes you’re hungry you’ll take a quick & cheap burger – and depending on the level of hunger, you’ll have at in a car.

Cooking an elaborate dinner cook for only yourself does seem a tad onanistic; meals are always better when shared with people you love. In honor of Valentine’s Day, Saucyman readers shared memorable meals they have shared in the courtship process.

For Southlander, it was catfish cooked in a hand made yellow coconut curry that made her believe that she would be well taken care of in every way. ‘Earl’ was once approached and told that the abandon which he was attacking a lamb chop was fairly hot. Lamb was also a focal point for our wine guy, who made a Lamb Navarre that would have assuredly got the job done had his wingman decided to do his duty, rather than be all funny. What can I say, I have a vaudevillian need to go for the laughs.

A reader remembers the very basic Baked chicken, mashed and veg she made for her love the first time she had her over. Not to be outdone, I am told of a gentleman who makes the same dish on all his first dates – some people put the Barry White to set the mood, this fella makes brown rice stir fry - And I hear its impossibly good, you know considering it is brown rice stir fry. A couple of guys go to the grill, while Not Dominos loves it when her fella spends 2 days making sauce and kneading dough in preparation for pizza night.

A good Midwesterner warns her daughters never to trust a man who cannot cook. For an Eastcoaster, the opposite is true – she wants to be the mistress of her own kitchen and distressed by the thought of her love in her room. While another gal chimes in that she loves anything she doesn’t have to make herself, but subsequently denied she had a crush on either the pizza deliveryman or the guy who works the to-go counter at the neighborhood Thai place.

Popcorn, movie popcorn, is the source of hope and humiliation for MFAMAN, who wasn’t and isn’t as smooth as he’d like to be. For me, globe artichokes will always invoke that popcorn feeling. Once upon an awkward Valentine’s Day, there was an artichoke – a giant steamed globe artichoke that had sharp edges and the flavor was muted by the effort it entailed to get to it, the whole thing was more work than it was worth. Yes, I am talking about the veg.

Once at a party I listened to a group of women talk about how they like men who eat sushi. I was aware, even at the time, the group might have been talking about something other than what you dip into wasabi. It occurred to me that maybe they were being all PG-13 and sensitive to my manly predilections but I also know at least 2 of them were talking about the actual fish and rice, going on to claim men who eat something other than burgers and fries showed a sense of adventure. Men, have no such means test involving chicken wings.

SouthernAccent claims the sight of man making a salad dressing, not even a fancy rich one, but a lowly vinaigrette did it for her, proof positive that it isn’t always the choicest cut that wins favor, but the attention to detail that can be sublimely attractive. At the other end of the spectrum, an anonymous commenter tells us a steak on a plate, rare, served ala Carte in a restaurant overlooking the ocean sealed the deal on a romantic getaway. The lesson to be gleaned from these two examples? Expensive steak, handmade dressing. Starches are overrated, except when they aren’t…

Mashed potatoes (of love) received the most votes. The problem is that it isn’t one recipe for a tuber based love potion. Some want garlic mashed, a specific reader – wants, prefers, craves fork mashed potatoes with extra lumps, while I am not sure there would be a second date between us, there hasn't been a first either Blue cheese embedded and topped with gravy & butter struck a nerve for saucyreaders.

A FOS was once served something called The Panty Melter – a collection of 5 disparate and equally rich ingredients. Any combination of 2 of them could have got the job done; 3 and another glass of wine might have also worked but all 5 combined with the name, which does sound like it can be ordered from the ladies menu at a truckstop Hardees, was too, too many things.

Greg Rios, his real name, makes chili that his wife adores, his recipe even won a chili contest in the vegetarian category. A feat that made his wife proud - being an award winner, the chili has to be very good, making your betrothed proud, is something special.

So go cook something to make your sweetie proud.