Sexy Food

I have truly come to respect the visual aid that a picture can bring to a piece of writing. I often reminisce to my other classmates about my days at college, when technology was in the stone age, comparatively speaking. We got our syllabus on the first day of class, papers were handed in, in physical form, and Powerpoint was in its infantile stage. The whole visual component of a presentation never really factored into the work of an english major, and I saw it as all for the better, as it forced you to really hone in on what the speaker was saying, without hazing out in a fog of fancy computer screens and last night’s joint.

As for this goat? Her name is Precious, and before you get all Gollum on her, know that this is not the work of five minutes learning how to Photoshop pull a photo, but instead something that provides the perfect segue into my sexy foods bit. Because she is. Sexy, I mean. Oh, and food.

My first real goat outing came during my days at Mantra, where the air hung thick with various spices, and Lali the Jolly Bengali would entertain us with eating whole garlic cloves while he stocked the tandoors like a madman. It was 2003, and India had made the World Cup Cricket Finals, against Australia, and this was an obvious cause for celebration. So many a goat made its way into various soups and curries that night, all to be consumed somewhere around 3 am, given the time change. And let me say for the record that goat at dawn is great goat.

Since then, my total goat consumption, on a yearly basis, has been meager at best. But in the past 5 months, I’ve feasted on braised goat shank in Verona, goat yogurt in the hills of Crete, and many a goat cheese (there was also the discreet taste of goat in some baklava the other night, but that doesn’t count.) And all of it…ALL OF IT, made me realize that the goat, resplendent in its off-key bell and frighteningly agile quadrupedity (I know that word doesn’t exist, but it starts with q, so I get more points for it), is indeed a sexy beast (perhaps slightly less than Ben Kingsley; no offense to Sir, of course.)

This takes me back to my short-lived days in cooking Aphrodisiac dinners for different groups. Sure, anyone can wander around , flopping an asparagus spear back and forth, literally thrusting its penile values in your face, or extol the sensual virtues of the salty oyster, its curled edge virtually begging you to succumb to wanderlust of….well, lust. But to me, it needn’t be so obvious, so forward. I was instantly and utterly smitten with a girl back in college because of the way she devoured a steak and cheese. But what is truly sexy, is when everything comes together in food, flavors, textures, and smells are coaxed, not forced, and they make you stop and say “wait, this came from that?” It’s the unexpected, be it person, place, or thing. And when done right, it can be glorious. Or precious.