sexy food

I stayed up late to finish "Julie and Julia" last night and I couldn't resist dogearing this passage:
"Somewhere along the way, I discovered that in the physical act of cooking, especially something complex or plain old hard to handle, dwelled unsuspected reservoirs of arousal both gastronomic and sexual. If you're not one of us, the culinarily depraved, there is no way to explain what's so darkly enticing about eviscerating beef marrowbones, chopping up lobster, baking a three-layer pecan cake, and doing it for someone else, offering someone hard-won gustatory delights in order to win pleasures of another sort. Everyone knows that there are foods that are sexy to eat. What they don't talk about so much is foods that are sexy to make. But I'll take a wrestling bout with recalcitrant brioche dough over being fed a perfect strawberry any day, foreplay-wise."
It reminds me of this Dorothy Allison story (called, I think, "The Lesbian Appetite") (which is maybe why somebody who googled "lesbian cooking" got my blog?) in which all of her sexual encounters and flirtations involve food, including one incredibly hot scene with some eggplant... Anyway, I don't know how incredibly new or original it is to be looking at the confluence of food and sex, but I certainly enjoy it. For me, I don't know if it is always sexual (maybe just sexual in a less-recognized way?), but I love cooking for other people so much more than I enjoy cooking for myself. Granted, when it's only me it's not such a big deal if everything ends up tasting like ass. But I love working so hard to bring somebody something that will make them happy and full, that tastes good and that they will appreciate and hence validate my however-many hours spent preparing it. Perhaps for me sensual is a better word than sexual. Although never underestimate the erotic power of a good cheesecake...