The appeal of this book to me was how it aimed to combine my two very favorite things: sex and food. Sex always comes first in that short list because my love of food has much more to do with sex than my love of sex has to do with food. I was excited to find a book I thought would recognize and celebrate the inherently sensual characteristics of various fruits, desserts and exotic entrees.

Disappointingly, what I found inside InterCourses|InterCourses: an aphrodisiac cookbook was a collection of strange, unappetizing recipes, far too many which included greasy, gaseous cheese as a main ingredient and one entrée of veal—starving baby cows—just what gets me in the mood. By focusing primarily on foods that are known for having aphrodisiac qualities due to their resemblance to sex organs (i.e., oysters, avocados, asparagus) the book misses the mark by not truly uncovering the undeniable sensuality of textures, smells, deep and arousing complex tastes, and the many slow, savory methods of eating foods with real aphrodisiac potential.

The introduction to each featured food is a rather short, unsubstantiated, and mysterious explanation of its historical reputation for inducing amour. The publisher’s description raves about the book’s "elaborate appendices," and it does appear that most of the effort in creating this book went into its relatively long and detailed index. Amidst the few short sections in the back which each briefly touch on meal preparation and astrology, a chart pointing out all of the more obvious erogenous zones of the human body and an oddly illustrated (think Ken doll with fig leaf) guide to "Seducing throughout the seasons."

One of the more creative and useful sections provide a complete date recipe for each stage of a relationship: meal choice, music artist, song, movies and fun explanations for why each food was chosen for each particular stage. "No bad breath after eating this..." should give the reader confidence to follow through with the authors’ suggestion for serving grape sorbet in the fragile beginning stages of a relationship.

The literary highlight of the book is its short anecdotal stories attached to each recipe. A select few of these quotations will really get your juices going (like one contributor’s commentary on eating strawberries with a lover: "It’s the pure excitement of the luscious scarlet fruit tempting my tongue. And his luscious tongue tempting my scarlet fruit." Whew, I’ve read that passage over and over again and it still gets me hot, but most are dull, rather insulting attempts at conveying the aphrodisiac powers of each dish through some vague, overdone innuendo like, "My husband couldn’t get enough of it! He liked the sauce too" (That was what one contributor had to say about one of the more unappealing recipes that aims for exoticism, but entirely misses the mark of strawberry sauce served over grilled fish).

Visually stunning and beautifully formatted at the least, this is a book you could be proud to have grace your coffee table. But let your readers linger too long on any one page and they will see past the impeccable aesthetics and notice that concealed within the striking layout is an otherwise amateur compilation, devoid of any real informative or entertaining content.