Seattle catering chef Tiberio Simone thinks about food and sex a lot, often in tandem: A fennel salad has "a fresh flavor I can share and enjoy with the person I'm kissing," and he's used his mango salsa as a seduction tool. He also explores the sensual properties of food in a collaborative project with photographer Matt Freedman, draping naked models in fruits and vegetables. A woman's buttocks might be covered in strawberries, or a man's head, torso and arms decorated with purple potato slices. By turns arresting and playful, these pictures are accompanied by Simone's recollections of his Italian childhood and his meditations on adult pleasures, as well as several recipes. "If you pay attention, you'll see that beauty is everywhere," he advises. "In the produce section of the supermarket, and in the voluptuous person standing next to you in the checkout line." La Figa offers one lavish example after another of this philosophy of polymorphous pleasure. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com