A beautiful erotic meal should take you on a sensual journey tantalizing the senses and engaging the body and mind.

The perfect erotic picnic

Dr Michelle Mars Sex.scoop.co.nz

A beautiful erotic meal should take you on a sensual journey. It should be nourishing, satisfying and add to a sexy experience. It needs to stimulate the senses. A variety of textures, temperatures, and tastes inspires sensuality. Think, sweet, spicy, silky, slippery and seductive. Food in itself is evocative of sex, and an erotic meal is an aphrodisiac.

My inspiration for this picnic is a presentation I saw at the 2007 World Sexology Conference called ‘In Search of the Perfect Erotic Meal’.

Here is a plan for an erotic picnic. This can be a traditional picnic outside somewhere but it can also be a picnic in front of the fireplace or in your own bed. You can also pack an erotic picnic lunch or dinner and take your sweetie away somewhere new for the night.  See us talking about sexy food on TV1

Planning the meal is something that can add to the erotic excitement. You can be spontaneous with your picnic and make someone feel joyful and special, or to create a little sexual anticipation you can tell your partner, lover, friend with benefits, or your date for the evening what you are planning.

The picnic, once you get to it, should be light, it should be tasty and it should be eaten over a period of time, like a series of small courses. Begin with something tiny and interesting. Dinners in fine dining restaurants often begin with an amuse-bouche. A tiny course designed to delight the tast buds and get you in the mood for your sensual culinary journey.  Something  like watermelon with a little balsamic reduction pressed into the to or tiny squares of salty feta with a little dab or horseradish are fabulous for this purpose.

Variety is the spice of life, we recommend food where the flavours and textures are fresh and energetic, and a Tom-Yum soup as a starter would be an example of this. The feelings you want to generate with your meal will also affect the kinds of food you choose. Should it be exciting and new to elicit an erotic adventure? Should it be gentle and comforting to inspire deeper love and lust?

Regardless of your answer to the previous question there are a few general rules to follow. You need fruit, vegetables, a light yet tasty protein, a little carbohydrate and something sweet small and intense for afters. Finish one course, have a little break… then bring in the next one.

Along with light soup, salty snacks like nuts, olives, crackers or chips, and preserved meats are a good starter. Spicy, sour, and salty foods also get the taste buds working. Follow this with something to cleanse the palette, a salad that can be picked up with the fingers and munched and crunched is sexy. Try a green salad with slices of parmesan, slices of tomato with a basil leaf and a slice of soft white cheese, a pear and blue cheese salad, or even just a bowl of nicely dressed greenery is good here.

For the next course something light and spicy. This should be the most substantial of the courses, but don’t over do it. Like a degustation dinner where you have between 9-15 tiny courses, the picnic menu should aim for a variety of textures and flavours that tantalise your senses and bring you closer together.

Sushi or rice paper rolls are also fabulous and seafood is a good option here. Learning how to make Sushi and learning about basic Asian cooking can help with romance, especially if you are on a budget. Oh, and nothing says erotic more than the man of relationship preparing the picnic.

Oily fish can be served with wasabi and soy. Steak can be quickly cooked, sliced and arranged on small plates with onion jam or previously cooked caramelized onion. Anything that looks pretty and is not stodgy is good here. Remember, although too much food in the stomach makes your blood flow to all the wrong places. This is not going to make for an erotic experience and is detracts from your sexual potential.

Fruit, everyone thinks of strawberries of course, but grapes are a good option at this time of year and any fruit that gets cut in half to expose its flesh insides even the humble old kiwi fruit can be erotic.

Dark chocolate is the best desert for an erotic meal, it is so closely associated with sex because it releases the same lovely chemicals as sex does.

Food, wine, and sex are a wonderful combination. Wine lowers inhibitions and promotes sociability but only to a certain point. It’s different for everyone but beyond a certain point, (1-3 drinks for most people) alcohol affects your central nervous system unhelpfully, and once this happens your sexual prowess diminishes significantly.

If you drink too much alcohol without rehydrating yourself you are not going to get nice and juicy when that sexy moment arrives. The saliva in your mouth may dry up as well. No one really likes slobbery kisses, but a parched mouth does not feel sexy and after time does not smell too good either.

Alcohol may be the libation of the gods and certainly it can enhance a sexual experience but if after your first glass or three, if you still feel like a little more here’s a drink to keep you in the zone without negative effects. It keeps you hydrated, a little natural sugar and fizz keeps you stimulated and the Ph of the apple juice is kind to the stomach.

A Sassi Picnic Champagne Cocktail

Put 1-2 Tablespoons of, clear not cloudy, apple juice concentrate into the bottom of a champagne glass.

Add ½ C soda water

Top up with a ¼ C Dry Champagne Try it!

You won’t wake up with a hangover!

Our final tip is, if you really want to spice things up try blindfolding your lover and sensually feeding them unknown food….

Dr Michelle Mars is a freelance sexologist at Sassi-Inc blogging on the subject of sex for Scoop She can be contacted at michelle@sassi-inc.com. Or you can find out more about us at Sassi-Inc.Com