Four and a Half Years of Making You Spit Your Coffee

An admirer of my blog recently nominated Sex and the Beach for a Best of Blogs Award over at the Sun Sentinel under the Humor category. This blog is also up for grabs under Defies Categorization, but I don't know who nominated me there.

This got me thinking ... is this blog really that funny? Certainly, I've been told by one friend that she never takes a sip of coffee while reading Sex and the Beach for fear that the hot liquid might end up all over her keyboard and in her sinuses.

I can certainly think of a few posts that still give me a chuckle, like Holy Papi Chulo! Padre Alberto as Hurricane Season Boyfriend (2009) or the video of Dr. Annie Steelclit giving Bill Gates sex advice (2007). Then there's some South Beach classics, like South Beach Grouper Gropes on Lincoln Road (2006) and the South Beach Miniskirt Crisis (2006). And of course, there's always the rogue cartoons, like EAT MY FACEBOOK (2007) and the iPad for Single Women (2010).

If you've enjoyed this blog for the last four and half years, please vote for Sex and the Beach under the Humor category. There's a quick and easy registration process. You may vote once a day until March 1st.

There are also many other fine blogs competing for an award. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I am going to encourage you to support those blogs that have been offering quality writing and significant entertaining and/or useful, informative content for more than just a few months. Compelling blogs. Moving blogs. The ones you've been turning to every day or week for at least a year, for pete's sake. The true veterans, the die-hards, the ones who bring their topics to life and whose writing you just can't live without. The authors who've engaged the community, the ones who've made you think, made you happy, pissed you off and made things happen. I'm simply amazed that so many incredible, long-standing local blogs aren't even on the ballot.

If you're not familiar with the creme de la creme of the local blogosphere, look no further than the finest curator of local blogs, Rick from South Florida Daily Blog. The Sun Sentinel should've paid serious attention to his blog roll.

The Tiki Tiki on Tostones

I'm very proud to announce that Tiki Tiki Blog published my first contribution today. I love this blog; it celebrates everything about being a Hispanic-American woman and then some! One of its founders, Carrie Ferguson Weir, is not only a wonderful gal and savvy entrepreneur, but also a writer whose work I greatly admire over at Bilingual in the Boonies.

My first piece is about tostones (twice-fried plantains) and how my American boyfriend is learning about Cuban food. It's also a travel story about where to eat the best of this Cuban staple in Miami. And of course, it wouldn't be Manola if it also wasn't about the love. Here's a teaser:

I love el hombre as is, but ever since he had the first bite of a tostón, I’ve been noticing some changes. That twice-fried plantain, smashed flat to look like a big round cracker, has been working its homey magic on my fledgling Cubanaso. Actually, he would be a Jewbanaso, because he’s a Jewish New York transplant. And you know if there’s one thing Jews and Cubans have in common, it’s a healthy appetite for good food.

Served hot and fresh, with a little salt, a good tostón is crispy on the outside but creamy on the inside. Adventurous Cubans may squeeze a lime on their tostones or dip them in a simple mojo – minced garlic lightly fried in oil. . . .

Read more over at Tiki Tiki Blog. Tostones 101: How My American Boyfriend is Becoming a Cubanaso.

Sexcrunch: Valentine's Day 2010 Edition

From the "love" series by Gaping Void.

A story without love is indeed not worth telling, and the same applies to food. At least that's how I felt when I used to be a writer for a romantic travel magazine -- I'd always end up writing about the food I ate on my Caribbean trips.

Strolls down the beach and umbrella drinks are so cliché, but exotic, local fare is always new, tantalizing the senses. I remember the smell of cinnamon wafting up from warm breezes in Grenada far more than the name of the luxury resort where I slept. I can still vividly imagine the sensation in my throat when I drank a guava, passion fruit and nutmeg rum punch in Saint Lucia -- pure creamy smoothness the likes of which I've never experienced again -- and that makes me want to return to that honeymoon suite overlooking the sea. It's too bad I was alone and not on a honeymoon ...

The sensual enjoyment of food is a tantric practice, which I already wrote about in my post "The Chocolate Meditation" over at Noshtopia. If you can savor what goes in your mouth and down your throat slowly, chances are, you're probably a better lover.

Don't treat your lover's body like that Big Mac you gobbled down before reaching the stop light in rush hour traffic. Don't flash fry your sex. Slow down and simmer your passion instead.

And now back to your regularly scheduled humor. A few lustful links ...

FLUSHED WITH LOVE

A restaurant in Canada is giving whole new meaning to the mile high club, except that this "club" is located closer to the sewer. Mildred's Temple Restaurant has always had trysts in its bathrooms and Valentine's Day should be no different:

"Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?" patrons were asked in a not-too-subtle promotional e-mail.

The individual bathrooms will be open for sexual escapades from the 12-15th February. According to the manager, Rory Gallagher, a french maid will be working the toilets, making sure everything is "going smoothly and kept clean." [Huffington Post]

I don't know about you, but this sounds more like swinger's club to me! I really don't want to hear moans and groans while I'm peeing or pooping in another stall, but I guess some freaks out there might be into that.

The real question is: which will straight or gay couples choose, Ladies or Gents? And what's more, can you imagine if they did this in South Beach? Oh wait, they already do. And the only lines you see for the bathroom are the kind folks snort.

SEX ON A PLATE

Chat Up Line by Gaping Void.

And speaking of restaurants, Himmarshee in Fort Lauderdale's lovely riverfront area won't be encouraging you to get it on in the crapper, but will potentially inspire tremendous mouthgasms. Every time I eat here, I leave feeling a little moist in the loins.

Yes, I confess, this food makes me horny, so let me bestow praise on my two favorite menu items:

Butternut Squash Purses (shitake mushrooms, pecan oil, parmesan, sage and brown butter sauce) are so good, they should be served and consumed somewhere near your lover's belly button. Every flavor explodes yet melts on the palette. It may not be sex, but eating one of these suckers is definitely oral. If you order this, please close your eyes and chew slowly.

The Porcini Braised Short Rib (served with smoked gouda mac'n cheese with crisp parma ham and spinach in onion suboise, and grilled sweet and spicy peppers), gives me a boner every time and I don't even have a penis. Himmarshee is casually elegant, but I swear, if it was a honky tonk rib joint, I'd suck that bone down like nobody's business, right in front of everybody.

Don't ask me about dessert. I've usually reenacted the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally by then, to the complete embarrassment of the staff.

("Sex on a Plate" borrowed from the fabulous of Jennifer Iannolo of Food Philosophy, whom I've written about before at Sex and the Beach. If you have food lust, #sexonaplate is a great hashtag to follow on Twitter.)

If you enjoy wine, a great way to sample Himmarshee's appetizers is at one of Matthew Horbund's monthly wine tastings. Follow him on Twitter @mmwine or visit A Good Time With Wine.

FOR MY SINGLE LADIES

Women Are From Venus by Gaping Void.

Ok, now that I'm with someone, I'm not going to gloat about the amazing weekend ahead of me. But I've got to tell you that El Hombre (let's call him that for now), has planned not just a dinner but a whole three days of surprises for me. Listen, I've been quite miserable and dated several worthless assholes in the last few years, so I'm going to pull a L'Oreal this time and proudly claim "because I'm worth it."

But I haven't forgotten you! This is still a woman's guide to chronic living. And no one knows "chronic living" better than my wonderful friend Stephanie, who has chosen to approach this Valentine's Day with humor and zest for life. She offers six tips, here's one of them:

Here's the beauty of solo lovemaking. You know you are going to get lucky. You are guaranteed an orgasm, and you will get exactly what you want in bed because are you going to say no to you? No way! This is a chance to make sex all about you because heaven knows many of us know what bad sex is like.

Read more of Stop Wallowing in the Snuggie at Noshtopia.

Love Found Its Way

Did you notice the subtle change on the banner?

There are things I'm getting used to these days, like when he hurriedly gets out of the driver's side to open the passenger door for me, or the roses he buys from the ambling sellers on Lincoln Road. Sometimes, I need getting used to the fact that he keeps his word or maybe it's something simple, like a text in the middle of the day to tell me he loves me. He looks into my eyes with such sincerity and yearning, I'm getting used to that as well. And the way he takes care of my heart, this is perhaps the newest thing of all, for I have never known a man to cherish it so deeply with such devotion and care.

Everything really does happen for a reason. A week after my bungled departure to Hawaii, I went to a tweetup in Fort Lauderdale that I didn't even want to go to because I felt lazy about driving. But a friend of mine here in Miami said she'd go if I did and we carpooled.

He moved to South Florida in October and had been following me for a couple of weeks on Twitter, not only because I'm local, but also because he had been scanning the hashtag #americanairlines. Because of the airline mess up, I made sure to unprotect my Twitter account, so everyone, including @aairwaves, could read my tweets. I didn't pay much mind to him on Twitter, as I usually don't add any tweeps until I've met them in person.

Ironically, after an hour or so at the bar, someone whom I used to date a year ago introduced him to me. At the time, I didn't realize it was love at first sight, but now in retrospect, I know it was ... and so did a friend of mine who insisted she had seen sparks as we all sat down to dinner.

So there you have it: after about five years of being single, I have met the most amazing man at the age of 42. It was worth the wait. And I met him because of Twitter and because American Airlines refused to let me on that flight to Hawaii.

And well, because the universe had a plan for me that I sometimes doubted. But my faith is restored.

I am so blessed and grateful for this new beginning.