#RomBkLove August Week 4: Food. Hunger, Want, Thirst, Desire... Who combines food & romance to delicious effect?

Food is a big part of my family life, we have a lot traditions built around food. There are dishes we only prepare at Christmas (Coquito or Christmas Log) or foods (Pink beans and rice) we always have on hand. There are the soups or teas we always turn to when we are getting sick. How, when and what we eat at family reflects a lot of what is going on in our lives. If we are stressed and under pressure a lot prepared foods from Wegmans, but the more time we have, the more creative and fun it is.   I can't say I am like my mom who expresses her love through cooking but cooking is certainly one way I express my Puerto Rican identity. I have a hand-painted plate up in my kitchen that states that my kitchen is Puerto Rico, step in there and expect to find all the pilones, plantains, garlic, adobo, gandules and rice you might ever need.  

There are a thousand cupcake baking heroines but food in romance can play other roles, sometimes is it a caretaking act, providing warmth and comfort when it is needed, or sometimes and exploration or rediscovery of personal tastes and desires that in tandem with sexual desire and sometimes an expression of creative energy beyond simple sustenance.

Nessa the heroine in Kit Rocha's Beyond Surrender has one overriding passion in life. She has taken up and abandoned a thousand hobbies but the only thing that has held her attention for the whole of her life is making Bourbon. But the fact that her skill makes her incredibly value to O'Kane gang and their competitors means she has had to fend of too many suitors who are not interested in her personally, making her incredibly suspicious and wary.  I love this scene from Beyond Ecstasy, where that tension and conflict is highlighted.

In Fast Connection  by Megan Erickson and Santino Hassell, Costigan's insistence in making himself a sandwich post hookup with Luke, highlights both his vulnerability and obliviousness. He wants to build a connection, make something more of his encounter with Luke, all while Luke is trying to usher him out of his house so he can keep his life strictly compartmentalized. The Costigan family bagel shop is also a source a lot of tension in the book, as Dominic struggles to work alongside his father again after leaving the military. *( note: 3.9.18 -- Since this was published allegations have come to light that the author known as Santino Hassell, Catfished and mislead, co-authors, fans and others)

In Clean Breaks by Ruby Lang there are a ton of scenes food,one a turf war over a favorite sushi restaurant, an insane but cathartic food fight between siblings but my favorite and most fascinating was when Jake and Sarah take Jake's dad to a white-run Taiwanese restaurant, and how differently they react to the experience. This is not a book about food but like in my life food has a role in a lot of the most important scenes.

In Beverly Jenkins's Forbidden cooking is not just something that provides sustenance for Eddy it is a skill that can give her a way out of poverty. She stubbornly holds on to her cookstove, when she is abandoned in the desert, because without it she has not way to provide for herself. In the book the meals she shares Rhine while she is recovering at his place establish intimacy and his stubborn desire to care for her. The role of food plays in community comes up again and again in the book.

Laura Florand writes a lot of books that feature chefs or chocoletiers.  These books use food in classically romantic and seductive ways. If you want a romance that will make you want to order fancy chocolates or make your own hot chocolate from scratch you need to find her books.    

I really enjoyed Sabrina Sol's Delicious Desire series.  The first, Delicious Temptation is about a Mexican-American pastry chef who returns home to help keep her parent's traditional bakery alive, but it is a thankless sacrifice as they resent all her suggestions to update the menu. She then falls for a guy with a terrible rep.

In Kristen Ashley's books food is ever present. Sweets, junk food and above all comfort foods are sprinkled through each of these books, (for example Hillglosss Donuts, Sunny and Shambles's moist cakes, junk food football Sundays), and fancy restaurants are often sites of romantic confrontations and showdowns.  She has a recipe section on her site because you can't help but want to try some of these foods after reading. 

If you love food competitions and older protagonists you should read  A Taste of Heaven by Penny Watson . The heroine has been struggling since her husband's death and her daughters enter her in a reality cooking competition as a way to shake her out of her grief. The competition and one particular competitor in particular help her remember who she was before.

Alisha Rai's Pleasure series books, Glutton for Pleasure and Serving Pleasure feature sisters who run a Indian restaurant. The books are filled with rich flavors and savory smells, but the heroines are both starving for affection and touch and find love with unconventional men.

In Truly by Ruthie Knox the heroine has stabbed her former boyfriend with shrimp fork for proposing in the worst way possible. She meets the hero (beekeeper and chef with anger management problems) in a bar where she stranded without her IDs and credit cards, after her dramatic break up, where his offer of a drink turns into dinner that turns into more, and before they know it they have entangled themselves in each other's life like neither of them expected.

My last rec is isn't a book, it the review blog of one my dear friends, Elisabeth Lane.  Elisabeth combines her baking and writing talents in Cooking up Romance where she posts for fantastic recipes inspired by the books she reviews . And check out her instagram because it is drool worthy (and more frequently updated) and treat yourself to literary and culinary treat.