Last week I was talking about food in the bedroom, and now I’m talking about food in the kitchen. I’m not obsessed with food or anything – I prefer the term “food enthusiast.” We all need to eat, and as for me, I love to cook, moreover, I love to cook with my boyfriend. Cooking together with your significant other is a great way to – literally – spice up your connection.
Ladies, men love a woman who can cook – after all, we’re always hearing that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Gentlemen, women love a man in the kitchen; a man who can feed her more than just meat – plus, a guy in an apron is kind of sexy.
“One of the best opportunities to create a new bond with your partner is to either cook for them or with them. Cooking can be quite sexy and put you both in the mood for romance more than the meal itself!” says Jaymi Heimbuch, writer for TLC Home.
Christopher Silva, junior at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, says that he loves both cooking with and for his girlfriend, “It feels great cooking with her. It just adds one more thing we can do together.” For more romantic dinners, Silva likes to fly solo in the kitchen, but when “we cook together, it is usually fun activities, like homemade Rice crispy treats or holiday cookies.”
Other couples have a weekly routine, “I usually cook dinner on Monday nights with [my boyfriend] and it’s a lot of fun, I love it!” says senior at Florida International University, Maria Lucia Hernandez. Hernandez suggests that you figure out what you and your boyfriend want to eat before you start cooking. “I know my boyfriend loves pasta and chocolate so I try to cook different meals with those ingredients and he always ends up happy and satisfied,” she says.
There are certain foods that are considered aphrodisiacs and stimulate your sexual desires. Cosmopolitan Magazine gives a list of these foods that can improve your sex drive and get you feeling randy: hot chilies, asparagus, avocados, bananas, chocolate, oysters, pomegranates, red wine, salmon, walnuts, vanilla, and watermelon. Now, it sounds a bit difficult to incorporate all of these foods into one meal, so it might be wise to spread them out throughout the day. May I suggest bananas, watermelon, and pomegranates are great for breakfast or a snack. For dinner, serve avocados as an appetizer, salmon and with asparagus as a side, and vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup as a simple dessert. And voila, you have a day filled with aphrodisiac foods, and the evening that follows should be as delicious as your day.
Even if you’re not cooking aphrodisiac foods, just the simple task of making a meal together is extremely romantic on its own. “Cooking also is cheaper than going out to eat at a restaurant or ordering take out, so it is a great alternative when you don’t have a lot of money and want to eat and spend some time together,” says Hernandez. By cooking together, you’re learning more about your partner and it’s a great way to see how well you two work together. Silva has this to say about that, “If you two cannot work together to create a simple meal, how do you expect to work together in life?”
Heimbuch gives these suggestions for simple recipes to try with your lover: penne alla vodka, golden beet Carpaccio, lemon pepper pasta was capers, gnudi with wild mushrooms, molten chocolate cake, croissant French toast, and Provencal rack of lamb. All the recipes for these meals can be found at http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/romantic-recipes.htm. She also suggests that for a simple meal, “it can be fun to present [it] creatively with either a design on the plate, or making the dining area extra special with candles, flowers, wine, and maybe a little soft music playing in the background.”
Remember that playful things can happen in the kitchen, and a fed couple is a happy couple!
