YONI-licious!

I received an email from a tantra teacher who knew of my openness .  She was hosting a goddess workshop to explore the mysteries of the yoni, to include instructions on what to contract, what to relax, and demonstrations on how to touch.  She asked would I be so kind to be the model. HELL yes.  I did not hesitate.  I began to prepare for this adventure.  

As a sensualist, I like to incorporate all senses into my experiential being:  taste, sound, touch, sight and smell.  However, I am most fully integrated when I can combine my sensuality with my creativity, spirituality and intellectualism.  I saw an opportunity to prepare for this yoni-centric experience while fully realizing my integrated self.  

I knew that the tantrika would serve food at the event and the group would be a receptive audience to my out-of-the-box food creations.  I would create a food both sexy to look at and sexy to eat.  Just this act of creation tapped into my sexual reservoir and started the juices flowing.  Creative juices, sexual energy, the result would be delicious!

I have long experimented with the plating of dishes to appear phallic or yonic:  sexy shaped food to remind us of our sexual being.  We eat first with our eyes and sight is the sense that helps draw us in to the experience.  Next, our palate is dependent and connected to our sense of smell. the aroma should be inviting; nurturing not abrasive.  The scent attracts one to consume it as a cologne or a perfume seeks a lover.  Finally, when the food and mouth meet, the tastes should combine to offer complexity and variety:  combinations that the poly-inclined appreciate more than most.

I decided to take an old favorite – a dish that always generated requests for the recipe when I would share it at potlucks – with a new packaging and appearance in order to honor the yoni – the guest of honor at this particular event.  Scalloped Pineapple the recipe book calls it, but it’s really a pineapple bread pudding.  A simple recipe, the dish combines the glutonous basics (egg, sugar, butter, bread and pineapple) for a doughy, sweet medley with the carmelized sugar offering some crunch and texture.  Here is the basic recipe:

 

 

The recipe book I am using also taps into the Goddess; this is a collection of tried and true family restaurants passed around and shared by the generations of women who live in the grand estates just outside Philadelphia on what is known as “The Main Line.”  Thusly  titled Philadelphia Main Line Classics its popularity generated a sequel, aptly titled Philadelphia Main Line Classics II.  I have both, but the first shows its wear and tear; it is a favorite.  The recipe contributors, collectively named The Saturday Club, is a philanthropic women’s club organized in 1907. The group today has a membership of over 100 women who donate their time and energy to local groups and community service projects and their resources to numerous non-profit and educational organizations in need. 

I intended to draw upon their wisdom and expand upon it, to create a visual, aromatic and tasteful replication of the yoni.   I believe these women would be proud that their recipe would be applied to such yoni-licious consequences!  So, instead of preparing the concoction family style as a souffle, I would instead make individual servings that bake in their own yoni-shaped lemon shell.  The bread pudding would then cook inside the lemon shell melding together flavors of fruity doughy sweetness with the citric tanginess of the lemon.  The pudding, thus, replicates the fleshy insides of the vagina.  On top, I would shape two peach wedges to form the labia, between which I would place a dollop of honey & cream in between to symbolize the nectar found within this mysterious organ.  Finally, a cherry would rest either in the center or at its edge to symbolize the sacred spot.   The result are 12 individual sized servings of yoni!

 

 

Before I get ahead of myself, here are the ingredients you will need to make 12 individual-sized servings:

• stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 can (20 ounces) of crushed pineapple
• 1 can (20 ounces) cherry pie filling
• 1 can (20 ounces) peach pie filling
• 6 slices of bread (crust removed)
• 6 lemons
• 1 package (8 ounces) of marscapone
• honey to taste
• lady fingers or vanilla sandwich creme fingers
• sweetened cream soda, add to taste

The first thing I do, a few hours in advance, is take the butter out of the fridge so it can warm up and be more receptive when I cream it with the sugar.  I found this simple task to be similar to the warming up the yoni must to do be awakened and receptive to self-pleasure.   Those times that I made do with refrigerator-cold butter, I would have to work harder with my wrist and arm to combine it with the sugar. But warmed up, they come together and bind harmoniously.

Once you are ready to start combining ingredients, you must also warm-up the oven so that it is hot enough to get the job done.  For this recipe, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Start with the lemons.  Halve them along their long side so that the shape most resembles the elongated yoni.  Then, you want to juice them.  Finally, take a spoon and scrape out as much of the remaining lemon as you can.  A bit of pithy membrane will remain.

Arrange the lemon wedges on a baking pan and place them in the oven.  This is to dry out the pith a bit before you add the other ingredients, but the result is an aromatic delight, as baked lemon will start wafting through your kitchen.  I removed the lemon wedges a few minutes after this aroma reminded me that they too were warmed and ready for what would come next.

Time for the wet-ingredient sinfulness:  all those delicious staples which perplex some:  butter, egg, sugar.  Irresistible for the taste hedonist I am! (A little secret – I always add a little more butter than the recipe calls for!)  If you are under dietary restriction do not let my words lure you to danger.  But, for those who can tolerate, these substances are the very essence of woman.

Butter springs from milk: the substance that nourishes the young and connects mother to infant.  This is also a source of strength:  calcium growing strong bones.  Eggs are the eternal depiction of birth and motherhood.  Their fragility must be guarded yet their contents, provide nourishing protein in the most tasty of varieties.  Sugar:  sweet as sweet can be, there is no substitute.  Yet, this same sweetness will lure others to consume her for their own.  She learns to guard against this, and hides behind sheaths of fibrous stalks known as cane.

So, order and timing are important.  Whenever combining eggs and dairy there is the chance you will instead make scrambled eggs (or so I am led to believe) so keep first things first!  Combine the butter with the sugar.  At room temperature, the butter should clump with the sugar.  Keep combining until all the sugar is clinging to some butter.

Now, take the eggs and add them.  I add them together all at once but the important thing is to take it slow and easy when breaking them into the butter and sugar medley – – don’t whip ’em into a frothy mess or they will peak before their time!   Once the eggs are all broken and assimilated with the buttery sugar concoction, time for the pineapple.  You can also substitute pineapple chunks instead of crushed pineapple.    Drain the juice from the can and add to the lemon juice you set aside from earlier.   After gently stirring, set aside.

Return to the baking pan filled with the emptied out lemon halves.  Sprinkle some sugar into each lemon. For those who elect to eat the baked lemon rind, this added sugar will balance with the baked citrus of the lemon to reduce its acidity, and they will thank you for this extra step.

Next, we add the bread.  Bread, too, has a great many symbolisms throughout our cultural history.  Bread is life.  Bread is sustenance. Bread represents bounty and plenty.  The gift of bread is in many cultures and act of social politeness for being welcomed into another’s home.  In France, for example, “buying fresh bread on the way home is a simple way of showing loved ones that you have thought about them and of giving them pleasure during the day.”  (Westwood, 2014, para. 2) How appropriate as giving and receiving pleasure will be a focus of the ceremony celebrating womanhood I would soon attend.

Bread, as well, is intimately connected with the female.  “A woman’s fertility cycle was linked to the earth. Women, they thought, were responsible for the success (or lack thereof) of the harvest, as they were perceived to have knowledge about creation. Fertility festivals were common, and in places like Sicily, loves of vaginal-shaped bread were given out in celebration of women and the harvest.”  (Wheeler, 2014, para. 4.)

Returning to our yoni assembly, take a slice of bread, remove the crusts and divide the remainder in half.  Place the half in the bottom of the lemon.  Press down so bread is below the outer rip of the lemon but not so firmly as you want it to soak up and absorb the gooey wet ingredients that you add on top. Use an ice cream scoop to measure out an appropriate amount of the pineapple-butter-sugar-egg mixture, being careful to scoop from the bottom to get all the ingredients.  When topping, these ingredients which comprise the “fleshy mound” of our yoni, can extend above the rim of the lemon.  While cooking the center mound may rise, as well.

When we later gathered for our clitoral stimulation demonstration, this would be the first time for many women, to have been able to observe, up close, the vagina of another exposed for their examination.   They were in awe.  They examined with quiet reverence.  When we cover ourselves up in clothes we create an image we hope to project.  When we lay naked with our most private parts exposed, we have no such protection.  We are at our most vulnerable.  The women were most appreciative of my willingness to lay bare my flesh for their examination.  I am a social scientist at heart.  We learn by seeeing, trying and refining our techniques!   The women watched quietly as I was slowly brought to ecstasy through the adept fingers and palm of the tantrika. A few noted how surprised they were to see that the the labia and surrounding flesh changes color and gets swollen.  They wondered if their body behaved similarly all these years without their knowledge.

Our bread pudding yoni will also get swollen as it cooks and will change in coloration.  Like the exposed yoni, the pineapple bread pudding reveals similar vulnerability when placed in the oven.  The dessert will not be edible and could make people sick if it is not cooked long enough, but, if it is cooked too long, it will dry out and burn.  Thus, while the pudding is at its most vulnerable we must be careful to allow it enough time to get to where it needs to get, but not too much time that it can no longer serve its intended purpose.

I recommend approximately 45 minutes to an hour for this to occur.  You will want to wait for some slight carmelization to occur on the top of each.  At this point, remove from the oven and allow to cool still in the pan for about 10 minutes.  Now, time to add a few other parts.

 

Take two peach slices and arrange them around the perimeter to replicate the lips of the labia.  The larger edge of the peach should be on the outside.  You can press the peach in to the pudding slightly to secure it in place.  Then, in another bowl, blend together the marscapone cheese with honey.  Honey, created from the nectar of flowers, reminds us of our own nectar:  the essence of our sexual and sensual being.  Religious texts and ancient literature reveres honey for its medicinal, healing and spiritual qualities. (Theophil, 2006.)

Now, return the lemons back to the oven for the peaches and cream to be absorbed into the pudding.  Wait for the peaches (labia) to get slightly darker.  Remove and let cool.  I experimented first with three lemon shells when placing the cherry on top and returning it to the oven with the cherry on top, but much as I had worried might happen, the cherry sauce bled in the oven and made for a slightly “bloody” appearance, and not as appetizing.  Thus, hold off on placing the cherries until immediately before serving.  Also pat off the excess cherry pie glaze that surrounds each cherry.

We don’t want to let the lemon juice and pineapple juice we have set aside go to waste.  Add sweetened cream soda for some carbonation and sweetness to offset the bitterness of the lemon.  Add to taste (I used approximately 4 12-ounce cans).  This will make a very refreshing beverage to complement the yoni-liciousness.  Transfer the lemons to a serving plate and place out the punch.

And now for the climactic finale:  the consummation.

How does one eat such a yoni?  The lemon shell, once baked, can be eaten or can be held as a cup to eat out its contents only.  As with a yoni, the person eating it has the option of burying the concoction in his or her face, scooping out delicious goodness with one’s tongue, or a few fingers can be used to help.  For this purpose, the yoni should be served aside lady fingers or vanilla fingers – perhaps both for more poly-choices and variety of textures!  Those who don’t eat their lemon cup can later fill it with the pineapple-cream-lemonade.

The result:  a yoni-licious extravaganza:  visual appeal combines with aroma and a taste medley.  But while each of these lemon halves contains similar ingredients, was assembled by the same person and has a consistent taste, they are all, too, slightly unique.  This was my take away from the gathering of goddesses who unabashedly shared methods and techniques for self-pleasure so that their fellow goddesses could experience the pleasures they had found for themselves.  What struck me was how varied the approaches to self-pleasure, yet, in the end, how similar we all are in our quest for better understanding our selves and our yoni.  Bon vivant!

References:

Saturday Club of Wayne (1982, June 10).  Philadelphia Main Line Classics.  Wayne, PA:  Junior Saturday Club of Wayne.

Theophil, M.  (2006, November 16).  A Meaningful Story of Buddha, Elephant and Monkey.

Westwood, M.  (2014, January 31).  How has bread been symbolic, culturally and religiously? eNotes.

Wheeler, (2014, February 18).   How has bread been symbolic, culturally and religiously? eNotes.