Eat Me: Love, Sex and the Art of Eating. Alexandra Antonioni

       Food to Entice, Excite and Enrapture

      To a man, offering him food is like offering him a breast.

      ANON

      Make sure the table looks good, nothing too formal; romantic, flirty and sexy is what we are looking for. Use flowers and candles in abundance. Lots of tea lights scattered around the room can be extremely effective. (Honey, everyone looks good by candlelight.) The use of pretty crockery, yards of cutlery, champagne, wine and water glasses, rose petals scattered on the tablecloth, finger bowls for sticky fingers, unusual breads with a dish of balsamic and olive oil for dipping and crisp white napkins all combine to create a feeling of luxury and pampering. Get dressed up; wear your sexiest dress and skyscraper heels. Perfect takes a tad longer, but it is worth the effort.

      Serve the best champagne you can afford. Nothing, and I mean nothing, sets the tone for a romantic evening like a glass of fizz. Don’t be tempted to tamper with it, champagne cocktails are wonderful but lethal and you will both get too drunk, too fast. Hey, we have an agenda here!

      The purpose of the Seduction Dinner is to create the basis of an evening that will impress the hell out of your chosen one whilst being relatively easy to shop for and that can be prepared in advance. This is crucial as it allows you all the time in the world to get yourself sexy … take a long bath with a glass of champagne and pamper yourself. You’re worth it.

      I will not eat oysters; I want my food dead, Not sick, not wounded … dead.

      WOODY ALLEN

      Whilst I adore the indomitable Woody Allen, he is really missing the point here. Oysters are the ultimate aphrodisiac, the science bit of which revolves around the high levels of zinc they are said to contain. To be frank, the science bit bores me, all I know is that these little beauties are capable of conjuring up a feeling of luxury and seduction like no other food in the world. Plump, moist and tasting exactly like the sea, they sit nestled in their pretty little iridescent, mother-of-pearl shells, just waiting to be sucked and slurped – the very act of which is so highly erotically charged it is akin to foreplay. They are simply a must at any Seduction Dinner, and I know of nothing else that marries so well with ice-cold champagne.

      Get yourself down to a good fishmonger and buy a dozen of the freshest and finest oysters they have. Buy them already shucked and on the half shell (any good fish-monger will be happy to do this for you) and run straight home, popping them in the fridge as soon as you get there. Serve these wondrous morsels on crushed ice, with a splash of Tabasco, as a preamble to dinner … Oysters and champagne scream seduction! In fact, as I write this I can’t help but feel a little envious, can I come to dinner too?

      For the squeamish amongst you, and for those of you who, alas, agree with Mr Allen and simply cannot eat oysters, substitute with smoked salmon served on triangles of buttered brown bread, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of paprika. For those non-fishy people, buy a small amount of good foie gras pâté and spread on thinly-sliced, lightly-toasted baguette and top with thin slivers of cornichons (baby gherkins to you and me).

      Whatever you choose to serve as an amuse-bouche it should be a small, luxurious, taste explosion to complement the champagne and kick the evening off with a rather illustrious bang!

      Seduction Menu 1

       A Salad of Parma Ham with Frigs, Mascarpone and RocketLinguini with Lobster and ChampagneIced Raspberries with Hot White Chocolate Sauce

       The Salad:

      2 ripe figs; 4 slices Parma ham; 2 tbsp mascarpone cheese; a grating of fresh nutmeg; 2 large handfuls of rocket; sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Balsamic vinegar and olive oil to dress.

      An effortless and unbelievably gorgeous starter. Take 2 figs and cut a cross into them about three-quarters of the way down. Squeeze their bottoms gently to open them up and expose the inside. Wrap a slice of Parma ham around each fig, fill the inside with a spoon of mascarpone and top with a grating of nutmeg. Bake in a medium oven, 180°C (350°F) until the mascarpone is bubbling, about 5 minutes; serve on a bed of rocket which has been drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Give the whole thing a good grind of black pepper and sea salt then tear up the remaining slices of ham into ribbons and scatter onto each plate. Serve with warm crusty bread.

       The Linguini:

      To serve someone lobster is to spoil them utterly. If they were in any doubt of your intentions, this dish should spell it out for them.

      A 1 kg (2½lb) lobster; 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped; a small fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced; 3 knobs unsalted butter; 2 tbsp olive oil; 400g (14oz) tin of plum tomatoes; a large glass of champagne; a small glass of water; 250g (9oz) linguini, cooked al dente; 1 handful flat leaf parsley, finely chopped; sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

      If you have bought your lobster live, plunge it into boiling water for 15 minutes then remove. (If you have bought a cooked, ready-to-go lobster, you’re a wuss!) When cooled, crack and remove all the meat from the shell, making sure there are no splinters.

      To make the sauce, fry the shells and legs in the olive oil and 2 knobs of butter over a medium heat with the garlic and chilli. Add the tomatoes, a large glass of champagne and a small glass of water, gently boil on a high heat to reduce the alcohol (for about 3 minutes), then simmer gently for 1 hour. Allow to cool. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve twice, checking for splinters. Place in a clean pan, add a final knob of butter and season to taste. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and toss it until well covered. Add the lobster at the moment of serving, toss lightly keeping the lobster meat visible on top of the pasta and serve in warmed bowls with a sprinkling of parsley.

       The Berries:

      This really could not be easier, but it tastes like it took a great deal of effort. Prepare the sauce in advance so that all you have to do before serving is place the raspberries in individual glasses and reheat the sauce. Serve the Framboise frozen in shot glasses, it finishes off the dish to perfection and gives it quite a kick!

      A pack of frozen raspberries (or fresh ones, frozen), about 150g (5oz) per person; 600g (1½lb) of good-quality white chocolate; 600ml (1 pint) double cream; 2 shots of Framboise (raspberry liqueur, optional).

      Break up the chocolate and place with the cream in a bowl placed over a pan of simmering water for 20–30 minutes, stirring every so often until the chocolate has melted and the sauce is hot. (If prepared in advance, reheat the sauce in the same way). Five minutes before serving, place the berries in your prettiest dessert glasses or on dessert plates and leave at room temperature for 5 minutes. Cover the berries generously with the sauce and serve immediately with the shots of Framboise on the side.

      Seduction Menu 2

       Prawns with Garlic, Butter and Lemon

       Roasted Swordfish on a Tomato, Pepper and Red Onion Salsa

       Dark