A Recipe for Pleasure

Solunis Nicole Bay

Description

This cookbook gives you delicious recipes and shares the author’s journey from fear, messy entanglements, and insecurity into self-love, honor, and delicious pleasure.
In A Recipe for Pleasure, author Solunis Nicole Bay takes you on a journey back to the late ‘90s /early 2000s to share her struggles to be an integrated, aware, and passionate person in a world that seeks to define black women like her as complicated, risky, and, ultimately, in need of control.
She discusses the impact of family and social pressures to “do right,” “be good,” and “succeed.” Recipe by recipe, step by step, she shares her path to becoming free, whole, authentically loved, and fully expressed in pleasure.
Bay tells how she was unaware of her worth but had an inkling of how to discover it through taste. A blend of a woman’s raw truth and culinary treats, A Recipe for Pleasure explores Bay’s relationships, the relationship with self & future self, and the ingredients expressed in her entanglements. Her stories remind you of home, passion, lost flavors, and lustful desire—one relationship and recipe at a time.

Sujets

• Cuisine
• La cuisine et son histoire
• Libération
• Cooking
• Recipe
• Self-esteem
• Pleasure
• Self-love
• Liberation

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press
• Date de parution: 05 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798765232064
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Recipe for Pleasure
 
JOURNEY INTO LOVE, FREEDOM, AND NOURISHMENT
 
 
 
 
SOLUNIS NICOLE BAY
 
 
 

 
 
Copyright © 2022 Solunis Nicole Bay.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
 
 
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com
844-682-1282
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
ISBN: 979-8-7652-3205-7 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-3204-0 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-3206-4 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022913602
 
Balboa Press rev. date: 09/29/2022
Contents
Introduction
Dedications
Course: Young Identities
Course: Rebellion
Course: Imitation
Course: Running Away
Course: Loosening up
Course: Secrets
Course: Integrating
Course: More Adulting
Course: More Adulting - Part 2
Course: Partying
Course: Exploring My Shadow
Course: Former Lover, Talia
Course: Forming a Trauma Bond
Course: Community Trauma
Course: Art as a Healing Practice
Course: New City, New Community
Course: Finding my Place
Course: Repeatable Patterns
Course: Walking Away
Course: Standing Your Ground
Course: There is More to the World
Course: Clarity of Sight
Course: A Mentor, A Friend
Course: Learning to Care When It Doesn’t Impact You, aka Grace & Generosity
Course: Restart
Course: Grounding and Contradictions
Course: Joining
Course: Meeting a Soulmate
Course: Another Lifetime
Course: All Things Not Aligned
Course: Going Home
Course: Lost in Discovery
Course: Rediscovery
Course: Romance
Course: Learning Simple Pleasure
Author’s bio
Introduction
Pleasure is more than sex; it’s liberation.
It’s an exercise
It’s how we understand freedom.
A way of experiencing joy, softness, breath, and life.
I thought success, pleasure, money, and luxury were solidly linked. It’s not true. That is what the dominant culture wants you to believe. The idealized life is sold with every magazine cover, social post, and mass-market commercial. As Black, indigenous women, we were not in those mainstream images but were told in subtle ways that if we worked hard, acquired money, and dressed the part, then we may assume power and the idealized life.
It took two decades of loss, pain, judgment, hurt, and forcing myself into the tiny box of “should” before I understood desire, dreams, sensation, and pleasure’s impact on healing and happiness. And still, I wrestled with my general concepts of pleasure and luxury. I relied on others’ opinions, not wanting to be judged too harshly for my thoughts. When I gave that up, I got free.
From that freedom, I redefined my life centering purpose, power, passion, and pleasure on my terms.
This is the story of my messy journey.
Dedications
I am thankful for my family’s support in telling my story. The moments when I thought I should not share something, they never wavered in their love. I am eternally grateful for the many lessons from my parents, grandparents, and aunts & uncles here and on the spirit-side that continue to guide me.
I also dedicate this book to my past lovers, friends, and chosen family. Each of you taught me more about myself than I could have discovered alone.
To the women who have always been by my side, Nyrobi, Golda, and Anishika, thanks for saving my life every time. “Sista love” is a powerful balm.
Thank you to my Brooklyn, Atlanta, Cali, and Hawaii crews for holding space, light, and love for me. A few names stand out: Kamilah Forbes, Charles Blow, Emily Green, Amber Hill, Stuart McCalla, Gilbert Brown, James Allen, Lois Griffith, Brandon Claybon, Sonja Marie, Tom Corddry, Rha Goddess, John Lucas, Bianca Jones, Jerris Madison, Amel Harper, Cole Bryant, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Tihanna McCleese, Antonio Salas, Amanda Lyon, and the SI and BPY families; thank you for your love, faith in me, and the pushes to reveal my best!
Course: Young Identities
As a young person, I knew what I was told a successful life should looked like. And everything around me didn’t seem to match or was a bundle of contradictions. My childhood memories are a mix of divorced parents, abuse, addiction, a fractured family, trauma bonds, and poverty, intertwined with private schools, bouncing from city to city, church every Sunday, choir rehearsals, clarinet lessons, dance training, homemade from scratch meals, books, and prayer. These contributions made me suspicious of people, so I observed everyone. And as I got older, I mimicked parts that matched what I saw on tv or traits of characters in books. I thought this was the only way out of my predicament… the way to have my dreams answered when prayer seemed to fail. Acting in this way meant breaking with convention. I followed my underdeveloped instincts. Often, that showed others traits of adventurousness, lustfulness, sinfulness, stupidity, or bravery. I saw looks from others of pity, elation, repute, or admiration. Every look made me feel odd… Like I belonged less to them but more like a spectacle.
Despite that, I still danced suggestively, ate hot and spicy foods, traveled to new places, and kissed strangers in the middle of the night. I often had very little in my pocket or mind during these acts. I mostly moved from instinct. Those moments were quite extraordinary. And, sometimes, it made me feel like a magical, purple unicorn able to do anything. As it turns out, my luscious, adventurous ways were a doorway into pleasure. A soul that beckoned me to become luscious. To be significant, full, tall, open, to be fed freely, and be full of ease. On my road to lusciousness, the ability to be lustful was not all I gained, but the depth of knowledge of the flavors of life felt like the sting of rejection but became an embrace of adoption. These experiences created my taste, like salt on my skin.
In business, they speak of sweat equity. But, we rarely give proper value to the lived experience. You flavor is the result of sweat equity too. It informs how you show up, what you do, and can shape your dreams.
Over my journey of exploring lust, I learned about love & pleasure. Love is an expression of transcendence that can be felt as pleasure. And it can be found in many activities and acts of service, gift, and thoughtfulness. Food is an expression of my love; cooking is one expression of my love; sex is another; dance is an expression of my love; warm ocean water is the feeling of my love. Yet, when I am foolish enough to think love is expressed as a person, I am always sorely mistaken. We are far more complicated. A person can be an embodiment of many things, and divinity is one. But love takes work; it lives in action. It’s the actions a person makes to amplify feelings of care. Therefore, it always work of desire. It’s fulfilling action but still, work.
I am a romantic, raised by romantics who preached that love is the ultimate expression of life. In my younger years, I understood this to mean that we should all extend ourselves in the name of love. What I did not understand was self-love. I did not witness much of it around me. Therefore, I would deplete myself for the sake of another. I often thought this meant others would extend back to me with the same fierceness. And if that did not happen, it was my fault. This was before I understood the impacts of abandonment or what nuances of codependency.
In moments of emptiness, I would compare my worthiness to another’s light. This only resulted in my deep self-loathing for parting my legs or wetting my hands with oil and blood for meals created. But, if I am simplistic about it, we all have paths. So, those people were my lessons. And maybe I was theirs.
Just know, I did not start craving connection in this way, nor is my journey over. I was a rather gracious kid- an inquisitive, shy adolescent and then a self-imposed extroverted teen.
As I began my adulting, creativity became ultimately important. It was my outlet for my emotions, thoughts, and experience. It was my channel in a time that society did not value black girls and women.