Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She worked as as journalist until she began writing fiction. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982), was made into a film.Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She worked as as journalist until she began writing fiction. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982), was made into a film.
When Isabel Allende worked as a journalist, she wrote an interview with Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet. Neruda, during the interview, told her that she had “too much imagination to be a journalist” and suggested that she become a novelist.
I have admired Isabel Allende’s writing, having read The House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia, and my favorite, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
I have loved Isabel Allende’s writings because she weaves such intricate threads with her words into tapestries of stories. Layer upon layer, the emotions and fragments of beauty come through like sunlight through a stained glass window, creating colors and shadows, and nothing is purely sunny nor is it dark. Her feminine intuition and wisdom comes through, as a deeper understanding of people as human beings.
Even her translation of love and eroticism within fiction has human frailties and passion within the pages.
Imagine how excited I was to find this erotic passage written by Isabel Allende in a Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women:
Our Secret (1989)
“She let herself be caressed, drops of sweat in the small of her back, her body exuding the scent of burnt sugar, silent, as if she divined that a single sound could nudge its way into memory and destroy everything, reducing to dust this instant in which he was a person like any other, a casual lover she had met that morning, another man without a past attracted to her wheat-coloured hair, her freckled skin, the jangle of her gypsy bracelets, just a man who had spoken to her in the street and begun to walk with her, aimlessly, commenting on the weather and the traffic, watching the crowd, with the slightly forced confidence of her countrymen in this foreign land, a man without sorrow and anger, without guilt, pure as ice, who merely wanted to spend the day with her, wandering through bookstores and parks, drinking coffee, celebrating the chance of having met, talking of old nostalgias, of how life had been when both were growing up in the same city, in the same barrio, when they were fourteen, you remember, winters of shoes soggy from frost, and paraffin stoves, summers of peach trees, there in the now-forbidden country. Perhaps she was feeling a little lonely, or this seemed an opportunity to make love without complications, but, for whatever reason, at the end of the day, when they had run out of pretexts to walk any longer, she had taken his hand and led him to her house. She shared with other exiles a sordid apartment in a yellow building at the end of an alley filled with garbage cans. Her room was tiny: a mattress on the floor covered with a striped blanket, bookshelves improvised from boards stacked on two rows of bricks, books, posters, clothing on a chair, a suitcase in the corner. She removed her clothes without preamble, with the attitude of a little girl eager to please. He tried to make love to her. He stroked her body patiently, slipping over her hills and valleys, discovering her secret routes, kneading her, soft clay upon the sheets, until she yielded, and opened to him. Then he retreated, mute, reserved. She gathered herself, and sought him, her head on his belly, her face hidden, as if constrained by modesty, as she fondled him, licked him, spurred him. He tried to lose himself; he closed his eyes and for a while he let her do as she was doing, until he was defeated by sadness, or shame, and pushed her away. They lighted another cigarette. There was no complicity now; the urgent anticipation that had united them during the day was lost, and all that was left were two vulnerable people lying on a mattress, without memory, floating in the terrible vacuum of unspoken words. When they had met that morning they had had no extraordinary expectations, they had no particular plan, only companionship, and a little pleasure, that was all, but at the hour of their coming together, they had been engulfed by melancholy. We’re tired, she smiled, seeking excuses for the desolation that had settled over them. In a last attempt to buy time, he took her face in his hands and kissed her eyelids.”
This erotic passage read beautifully to me. It shows two people as erotic and human. There is no idealization of the erotic, no fixation of body parts or intentions. The passage felt beautiful, melancholy, and real.
The book I love of Isabel Allende’s the most is Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
“I repent of my diets, the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity, as much as I lament the opportunities for making love that I let go by.” ~ Isabel Allende
Aphrodite‘s non-linear form is a melting sensual pot of her romantic and culinary recollections. She blends in her stories like a chef in the kitchen, adding spices and herbs. The book has recipes, erotic excerpts, mythology, poetry, travel notes and stories, and aphrodisiacs. Aphrodite is “a mapless journey through the regions of sensual memory, in which the boundaries between love and appetite are so diffuse that at times they evaporate completely.”
“Appetite and sex are the great motivators of history … All of creation is one long interrupted cycle of digestion and fertility.” ~Isabel Allende
In Aphrodite, Isabel celebrates the aphrodisiacs of many dishes with given recipes and sensual suggestions for their uses. Caviar, for instance, is “the supreme stimulus for lechery” and tells the tales of caviar and its sordid history. When cooking omelets, like making love, “affection counts for more than technique.”
Allende describes her dream of swimming in a pool of creamy arroz con leche, her favorite dessert. She gives her precious recipe for the soul food of rice pudding at the finale of her book. She suggests that we can slather it on a loved one, and slowly lick it off. She notes that, in this instance, the calories would be justified.
Sensuality and food is explored, revered, and celebrated in this saucy book of erotica excerpts, personal stories, aphrodisiac ingredients, and orgies are mentioned along with possible menus for such decadent events.
Isabel Allende’s Works
Happy July the 5th… I am creating some new articles for a few publications and for both blogs (Erotica du Jour and The Sensual Foodie) Plus, there have been so many things going on in my private life. My son is in baseball camp as well as ‘all stars’ league, so lots of baseball mom action: making sure he has enough water, food and rest, basically. And doing laundry. Constantly laundry. Then, my two younger girls are, well, young girls. They wake up early and refuse to go to bed (so I can write). But, I have perfected the art of banana pancakes recently, which is no small feat. Yes, I have finally mastered the ‘fluffy pancake secret’. Add bananas to that, and you have very fluffy, delicious banana pancakes. And, I have attempted to go to bed early(er) and get up early(er) although I do hit the snooze button quite often. Despite my snooze button fetish, I have promised myself that I would get into great shape this summer. Yet, waking up early for a walk/run on the beach has happened once this past week. I had hoped to do it every day, but when I don’t get to bed early enough, well, I do need my beauty rest. I weigh out the positives while I hit the snooze button. More sleep (beauty), or more exercise (fitness)? Or, more articles to post (intellectualism)? So, I hope to catch up with creating fresh and interesting articles for my love child Erotica du Jour. In an effort to make this a dynamic and sexy blog, I decided to create two new categories for your pleasure:
Legs trembling,
he asks
why desire is like
the summer heat.
The moon tonight
is the color of wine,
making me drunk
with his question.
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The first food I remember tasting and feeling an overwhelming sense of pleasure from was rice pudding. It was evening when my grandparents arrived home from a dinner out, and they thought to bring a pint of rice pudding home. I may have been about six or seven at the time. The container was treated as a magical vessel, the way my grandfather spooned the pudding out into a small bowl for my dessert. Plump raisins speckled the pudding among the creamy rice, scent of cinnamon and vanilla. The raisins burst in my mouth with juicy surprise, and the heavy cream, so voluptuous and decadent on my tongue. Such sensuality was intensely memorable, particularly at such a young age.
Rice pudding was my first sensual food experience, and then there was the bowl of fresh strawberries, chopped up and swirled into sour cream with heaping amounts of brown sugar. Such were the beginnings of my culinary taste buds. As a girl, one with wonder about magic potions, and spells cast by witches and wizards in fairy tales, the idea of an aphrodisiac captivated me.
The potion that makes one fall in love seemed the most appealing. Whether it was made by a witch or concocted in the kitchen, that concept of creating something to evoke a strong desire, and love. Inspiration and seduction, the spell cast by pots and pans, by stirring exotic spices into a pot of soup, or blending a secret ingredient into your amour’s drink, the outcome would be unbridled pleasure.
The desire for pleasure is something that is deeply embedded in human longing. We seek out pleasure in food, drink, and love. There are many aspects to pleasure, of course, from having our hair washed at the salon, feeling the warm sun on our skin, stretching our body out in a comfortable bed after a good sleep, to making love, perhaps, in that morning or any other moment, and tasting something we truly enjoy. The idea of food as a magical substance that enhances our desires, that makes our love interest want us intensely, that inspires lovers to greater moments of passion, is an idea that has existed for centuries.
In New Orleans I knew a Voudou Priestess who had a little shop (botanica) where she gave tarot readings and dispensed love potions, spells, candles, and magical oils to her believers. I danced on Bayou St. John in celebration of the famous New Orleans Voudou Queen, Marie Laveau’s birthday. Erzulie was honored into the sacred space for the ceremony. Erzulie is the Voudou goddess of love, romance, art, passion and sex. Beauty and love are her creations. People came in seeking help with their love life. The Voudou “orisha” or “goddess” Erzulie is their version of Aphrodite, and she is called upon for love spells in particular.
The word “aphrodisiac” derives from the Goddess of Love and Sex, Aphrodite. She herself was born of the sea, emerging on a clam shell, created from sea foam. The “clam shell” has vaginal suggestions, and the sea, amniotic fluid, birthing from ‘sea foam’, which makes one think of semen. At least I think of semen when imagining sea foam.
Oysters are a known aphrodisiac, and the shells that glimmer with their opalescent promises of sexual stamina and male virility. Perhaps, then, sea cucumbers and geoducks might suffice for an obvious male aphrodisiac? Why oysters, with their feminine sexual offerings? But time has given meaning to these myths of aphrodisiacal qualities, and we don’t question the powers of the mysterious rites of sex.
Abalone, acai berry, apples, apricots, and even arugula are thought of as “aphrodisiacs”. Asparagus with its phallic spear, Avocado with its feminine vulva and center (pit) like a womb of green fecundity. Bananas are all too suggestive when eating. Basil was a Roman symbol of love. Champagne, bubbling and effervescent, inspires delight and tastes of romance, celebration. Yes, chocolate, for a multitude of reasons, is considered an aphrodisiac, without any doubt its mood-enhancing power is scientifically proven. Cherries are juicy and red, sensual to suck on, bite, turn the pit around in one’s mouth.
One key aphrodisiac: Cinnamon.
Cinnamon, the scent, beguiling for men in particular, and used in the greatest aphrodisiac scents: pumpkin pie and cinnamon buns.
At the top of “sexy smells” according to recent studies was both pumpkin pie and cinnamon buns. Yes, baking a pumpkin pie could be considered seduction.Want to spice up your sex life? Make homemade cinnamon buns.
There are fabulous resources available for aphrodisiac seekers like myself— one of the best books on the subject of “hunger and the psyche” is Bunny Crumpacker’s book “The Sex Life of Food” — this is my favorite book to bring along when dining alone. Imagine the curious looks I get from other diners when they observe me reading this at the table.
There is a wonderful book by Amy Reiley and Juan-Carlos Cruz called The Love Diet :
“A lifestyle plan for a healthy sex life for life, The Love Diet shares ingredients and recipes known to sustain a healthy libido as well as promote energy, mood, glowing skin and cardiovascular health.
The Love Diet is not a starvation program or crazy fad. No one food is off-limits on our plan. We just help readers understand how to reduce unhealthy ingredients and pack the diet with desired nutrients and more sustainable ingredients at the same time as delivering sensual textures and taste bud tittlating flavors.”
Figs are also an aphrodisiac. A symbol of a woman’s sex, figs are sensual, exotic.
Explore some aphrodisiacs, enjoy with your lover, or inspire yourself in the kitchen. Aphrodisiacs don’t need to apply to just romance, they can also uplift our mood, giving us a sensual experience of life and living. Create recipes using figs and other aphrodisiacs that appeal to you.
Papayas are also amazing for one’s sexual health: papaya has compounds that act as the female hormone estrogen. It has been used as a folk remedy in promoting menstruation and milk production, facilitating childbirth and increasing the female libido.
But in Guatemala, men eat papayas as an aphrodisiac. Aside from all the sexual reasons, papaya is incredibly good for our health: The milky juice that comes out from unripe papaya fruit is a good digestive aid. It stimulates the secretion of gastric juice, and is used in cases of stomach discomfort like dyspepsia. Commonly used as a cooking ingredient. the unripe or green papaya also has a digestive enzyme called papain which tenderizes meat. Papain is also used as a digestive aid and is said to have anti-inflammatory benefits.
Being healthy is sexy. We feel sexier when we are healthy also. And cooking for our lover can be an adventure, gathering the “magical” ingredients to woo our beloved, taking the time and putting love into what we make. Like Water For Chocolate is a favorite film of mine based on the novel by Laura Esquivel. My favorite scene is when Tita makes her famous “aphrodisiac” dinner of quail in rose petal sauce:
“Tita’s strong emotions become infused into her cooking and she unintentionally begins to affect the people around her through the food she prepares. After one particularly rich meal of quail in rose petal sauce flavored with Tita’s erotic thoughts of Pedro, Tita’s older sister Gertrudis becomes inflamed with lust and leaves the ranch making ravenous love with a revolutionary soldier on the back of a horse before being dumped in a brothel and subsequently disowned by her mother.”
Another book that inspires is by Isabel Allende: Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses—- “In this bawdy memoir-cum-cookbook, Allende has put together an apothecary of aphrodisiacs, from snake’s blood and rhinoceros horn to the more commonplace and more palatable oysters, “those seductive tears of the sea, which lend themselves to slipping from mouth to mouth like a prolonged kiss … can be purchased in bottles, but there they look like malignant tumors; in contrast, moist and turgid in their shells they suggest delicate vulvae–a prime example of food that appeals to the eye.”
“If cookbooks make up part of your library,” Allende notes, “books on eroticism should, too.”
Love magic and spells are part of ancient history.
“Eros spells” were mainly practiced by men and prostitutes in Ancient Greece. Eros spells were used to instill lust and passion into women, leading them to fulfill the man who invoked the spell.
“Love magic” was also practiced during the Renaissance period (14th to 17th centuries) and was both Christian and Pagan. It was taken quite seriously and sometimes hidden in pseudo-religious acts of candle lighting and prayer. It was also cast upon those of wealth and status, and used carefully due to the social and physical dangers involved in casting “love spells” during the Renaissance of Europe.
Tristan and Isolde is a tale that involves a “love elixir”: After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult for his uncle King Mark to marry. Along the way, they drink a love potion that causes the pair to fall madly in love. The story is told in many ways, and the effects of love elixir vary from tale to tale.
There was a chef I once was completely enamored with. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. A handsome, strong, tall Korean man with a sweet disposition, very shy, and a talented sushi chef. I dined at his restaurant just to eat whatever he decided to make for me. Being vegetarian, perhaps this illustrates my desire. I ate any kind of sushi, sashimi, and anything else he conjured. It was exquisite, the mystery. He served me at my table, rather than at a “sushi bar”. Kneeling at my eye level before my table, he looked at me with his penetrating eyes, and softly asked me, “What would you like tonight?” My answer could have been lusty and direct, but that would have ruined the magic. He flirted with me through food. It was as delicate as his sweet shrimp and baby lobster roll, as luxurious as his creamy sauces.
I will never forget the rainy night when I entered the warm candlelit interior of the restaurant, damp with rain. I was hungry. I had just spent several hours in my Japanese language class, and drove across the city, stomach grumbling, dizzy with hunger. The restaurant was quiet that night. Just the few waitstaff, the bartender, and me at my table. I was alone with my chef. I could see him from my table through the open space of the kitchen, in his indigo dyed yukata, his broad shoulders, his head wrapped with the same color “hachimaki” (head bandana). His face was illuminated by the indigo dyed fabric, smiling at me from the kitchen. He came out and asked me if I was especially hungry. Of course I was about to faint. Swooning. He said, “I know just what to make for you.”
As he bustled around the kitchen, he was a magician. There was something unusual going on. The sound of the rain, droplets on the windows sparkling with the lights from neon signs, the busy street, the interior candles. glimmering. The sounds of clanging pans and stainless steel bowls. He was not wrapping rolls or cutting fish, but using the stove. I noticed the shape of his body far off in the kitchen, doing something with a pan.
He returned with a plate of the most fragile lacy crepes, pahjun, or “pajeon”, made with scallions and other julienned vegetables inside a warm thin pancake. They are also known as authentic Korean “boochoo jun” (chive pancake). They arrived by his hands before me, the glorious scent, his hands near me, our eyes met over the dish, his gaze spiced with heat. He explained that I use my hands, gesturing to my hands, a slight touch to my skin, and his fingers to his luscious mouth, he said, “just dip and eat.”
The pajeon came with a dipping sauce that was fragrant and sweet— he had made it himself. He told me it had ginger, sesame, garlic. Something sweet also. Love? Desire?
An unforgettable aphrodisiac dinner, and the memory of that rainy night.
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I recently tried Babeland’s Body Chocolate with my lover. It is a delicious body chocolate made of sugar, organic cocoa powder, safflower oil, organic coconut oil, organic cocoa butter, and vanilla.
Being an amateur gourmet, I have some experience in tasting other chocolate spreads, from the luxurious Noisella, a Belgian chocolate and hazelnut spread (by Le Pain Quotidien, the Belgian gourmet café chain) to the infamous Nutella. I love to spread chocolate on bananas, as it’s a sensual experience. Although eating it off a banana is cliche, it sure tastes good. The two flavors together are just delicious. Then I discovered Noisella while dining at Le Pain Quotidien. So, with these flavor references, I can properly explain that Babeland’s Body Chocolate leans closer to the latter, more elegant chocolate spread.
You are probably curious as to why one would order body chocolate spread from a sex toy purveyor when a chocolate spread could be found in some local gourmet shop? Why not go grocery shopping for your own 9 1/2 Weeks sexy food scenario? And so I will explain the positives of trying this Body Chocolate through Babeland: you can also shop for incredible, sex-positive, women-friendly, and even eco-friendly, sex toys while you order your absolutely delish Babeland Body Chocolate. Why not?
This particular “body chocolate” is by far superior to regular chocolate spreads, and comparable to some of the healthier kinds I’ve enjoyed (on bananas, bread and even raw flax seed crackers). But, let me tell you, it’s better on someone’s naked body.
Yes, my husband enjoyed the body chocolate on his nipples: “I didn’t think it would be so arousing,” he sighed. And… tasting it off his nether parts. And… his nipples again. I was surprised that he liked his nipples sucked, and so a discovery was made. Yes, it was yummy for me too, as I enjoyed spreading a taste on his arousal and slowly, languidly, tasting, sucking, and savoring it off of him. You might as well consider this “gourmet sex chocolate” and add it into your sex toy basket.
More reasons to lick up delicious Babeland Body Chocolate:
It contains coconut oil.
Research has proven that coconut oil has many health benefits. The health & beauty plus of coconut oil includes hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, to name a few.
The benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial.
And… chocolate? What could be better?
Think of the pleasure you will both have (or perhaps use it for a menage a trois? A chocolate body painting party? The possibilities are plentiful). And I am sure I don’t need to give you explanations on how healthy orgasms are. Coconut oil, chocolate, and orgasms? A quintessential recipe for health and happiness.
Just the many reasons to enjoy Babeland Body Chocolate. For a midnight snack, or a sexy morning breakfast in bed.
Chocolate happens to be my religion. I grew up in a very liberal Jewish household, the kind that celebrated the holidays with a “pagan” Chanukah bush. I decided that even though Judaism was my heritage, it was really chocolate that I believed in. Chocolate could get me through. If I was having a particularly challenging day, some good chocolate would just make things better. Not as tame as my British grandmother’s ‘cup of tea’ which also had the magical ability of righting a particularly rotten mood or moment,— chocolate promised of something sensual, something luxurious, like a seductive kiss. Hershey’s kisses, in their happy little easy-to-open foils, buttery with cocoa pleasure. Mood lifting. Aphrodisiac.
If I were admitted into the hospital, when asked what my religion is, I’d say “chocolate”. If I should ever be in a life or death situation, instead of sending the hospital clergy, my wish would be for someone from the ‘religion of chocolate’ to arrive, bearing a large box of chocolate truffles at my eleventh hour. I don’t need gloomy prayers, just give me a decadent bite of chocolate truffle with hazelnut filling.
The {aphrodisiac} history of chocolate and its origins, little nibbles quickly taken from the chocolate bunny of Wikipedia:
The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl (/ʃo.ko.laːtɬ/), a Nahuatl word meaning “bitter water”— Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the theobromine content. Chocolate was also an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were often used as currency.
A BBC report indicated that melting chocolate in one’s mouth produced an increase in brain activity and heart rate that was more intense than that associated with passionate kissing, and also lasted four times as long after the activity had ended.
Babeland Body Chocolate. It does a body good.
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I discovered this website a moment ago… what beautiful artistic photography!
Photographer Dominique Lefort is a discovery…
