coaxing

Then something subtle but definitive occurs as Chris rises off his couch: a man and a woman lean in and nuzzle his neck, coaxing both a shiver and a smile out of him.

Clinic staff start early in the morning, walking around the docks and coaxing workers off the boats with promises of free health screenings and physio.

I didn’t yet know how to trust food to become itself without a bit of coaxing, so I poked and stirred and second-guessed, throwing in handfuls of things that didn’t always belong.

It gives me the most control, and that matters when you’re coaxing egg yolks into something glossy and stable.

There’s a long tradition, especially in Asia, of desserts that borrow from the savory — leaning into umami, coaxing sweetness out of ingredients more often found in soups than sweets.