Celebrity guest chefs, artisan cuisine and aphrodisiacs
Ah Fabio. One of the best known serial Top Chef contestants that just didn't win the big prize. What he
does have , however is charisma and that is one of the key ingredients to creating food that fits the bill for descriptions that are as titillating as any scene in an erotic movie.
The words that are being used to describe food is often so sexually tinged, that you're not sure if you're in a bordello or a restaurant. Chefs now expect to be called "chef" just like doctors expect to be elevated by their doctor 
moniker, but chefs are able to sell sex while doctors, well, just look at Dr. Mehmet Oz... not much sex appeal there! However, just like most physicians, chef's don't seem to understand what they don't know, that they aren't social matchmakers and sexual, intimacy consultants and trainers.
The confusion comes from the adulation and narcissism that is on display from these chefs and that is an obvious side-effect of new found celebrity. There is no doubt that food can in fact act as an aphrodisiac and be one as well, physically changing your mood depending on your perception of what you're eating.
Real affects of food on our libido
Yet, with very few exceptions, these chefs, globally, treat food as an almost ethereal and religious
experience, bringing them closer to seeing heaven than even a brush with death. They forgo considering or sharing and don't even discuss the true effect that food has on a persons sensuality, attitude and sexuality. Food has an effect on us through it's appearance, smell and taste. Then, our bodies, after being altered by the previous three senses, are slammed with what that food can do to 
us after digesting it. It's about hormones and how the food affects the levels of feel good chemicals in our brains. The affects aren't that far different from recreational drugs. So when you are in a drug fueled haze, sex and all it's descriptors tends to flow more easily, just like when you are drunk. You're apprehensions and cynicism are substantially lowered. So yes, your sauteed scallop starts to take on a sexual connotation, especially if you're a man with high levels of testosterone, or a woman whose estrogen is peaking along with her interest in a partner that is within reach.
The Jedi Knight of chefs
When some chefs are being called "The Jedi Knight of chefs" or competing with each other over the
smallest detail to feed their enormous ego's, they appear no more professional than the vapid, shallow characters on so many other reality television shows.Yet, they do have an intensity and appreciation for the food that they work with and how it changes when cooked. Many new-age chefs are using space-age techniques to prepare foods, deconstructing their essential make-up and becoming lab-rats in the process. This almost fuses biology with chemistry and when you throw in the palate and the descriptors, you can be writing a science fiction novel complete with Captain Kirk grabbing a green skinned alien for a full-mouth kiss!
Simplicity still has a role in dining too. If you are able to prepare a meal that has a number of aphrodisiac properties and scents, combined with an ideal romantic setting understanding the person you are entertaining, than what more do you need? It may be fun to watch a chef pour dry ice over fish, or boil and discombobulate meat to the point that you don't recognize it, while still tasting it's most dominant umami flavor. However, just like driving a Ferrari Boxer on the broken, traffic clogged and filthy streets of Manhattan, overkill and wasted effort is easy to spot in the kitchen as well as anywhere else.
Baby-boomers have replaced sex with food that now equals food-porn
Some may accuse the Baby-boomers for this foodie craze, having given-up on romance, intimacy and
passion in their personal lives as they get older, bored and distracted because of age or worse, lechery. Aging absolutely affects our hormone levels, which in turn reduces our libido and health in general. Despite our sense of smell and taste diminishing, it is believed that food as an area of simple comfort without the emotional and physical commitment, is far easier for Baby-boomers that a real relationship and all of it's real, long-lasting issues. Why else can we justify a failed marriage rate of up to 75% in our society (over 50% of marriages end in divorce and of the remainder, 50% dislike their partners and would get divorced if they could).
Food then becomes the surrogate for sex and intimacy, with descriptors like those used in the title and even more detailed if you have a drink in you! I've made it my own goal and passion in life to get people in relationships to focus on communication and romance, which not surprisingly brings a new level of enjoyment to most couples, married or not. That little bit of extra effort is now, it seems, being wasted on creating a temporary discussion piece in food shows, at restaurants and other 
foodie events, instead of being spent on personal, intimate relationships. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for creative, delicious meals with a variety of ingredients that bring one of our most sensory experiences to new heights. What I do have an issue is when in our struggle to define morality and our culture, the adult/sex oriented side of our society in it's fight for recognition and legitimacy against the puritanical, conservative elements who claim the moral high-ground, have given into intimacy as an important aspect of any relationship and replaced it with food! That truth needs to be overturned and we must bring romance and intimacy back into our physical and mental lives without it being dominated only by food.
