Love bites

Melucci also falls hard for a Scottish writer she calls Lachlan,who has not published a novel in 10 years. He occasionally cooks and once,when he overcooks the pasta,he apologises. “It would be the only time he took responsibility for a limp noodle,” Melucci writes. What did she hope to accomplish by cooking wonderful dishes for these jerks? “I thought it would make them love me,” she says.

She began her career as a receptionist at Spy magazine and then got started on a string of publicity jobs in publishing. It also provided her with a large dating pool of demanding,dissatisfied persons,whose needs could never be satisfied—i.e.,writers.
Melucci is the classic woman who cooks too much and obsesses about being unable to,say,find mâche,the lettuce leaf the man in her life prefers ( “A Salad That Failed to Make a Perfect New Year’s Eve”).

She lives in Brooklyn in a single bedroom flat. She was living there when she meets the long-unpublished Scottish novelist,who asks her within five minutes of meeting to help him get his book published. She does; she also finds him the agent who gets him a $110,000 advance. In return,he doesn’t kiss her on New Year’s Eve.
But he does suggest she write “a cookery book”. The day after he leaves,she finds herself writing about him—and that essential item in life and love,food.
_JOYCE WADLER,NYT