I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti: A Memoir

From failure to fusilli, this deliciously hilarious read tells the story of Giulia Melucci's fizzled romances and the mouth-watering recipes she used to seduce her men, smooth over the lumps, and console herself when the relationships flamed out.

From an affectionate alcoholic, to the classic New York City commitment-phobe, to a hipster aged past his sell date, and not one, but two novelists with Peter Pan complexes, Giulia has cooked for them all. She suffers each disappointment with resolute cheer (after a few tears) and a bowl of pastina (recipe included) and has lived to tell the tale so that other women may go out, hopefully with greater success, and if that's not possible, at least have something good to eat.

Peppered throughout Giulia's delightful and often poignant remembrances are fond recollections of her mother's cooking, the recipes she learned from her, and many she invented on her own inspired by the men in her life. Readers will howl at Giulia's boyfriend-littered past and swoon over her irresistable culinary creations.

"In the wake of several food-as-life memoirs, Melucci, a former v-p of publicity at Harper's Magazine, attempts to carve out her own niche as she narrates her love life through recipes. Shortly after college, Melucci sets out for New York City and soon starts to learn her way in the kitchen — and in the bedroom — while working for Spy magazine. Mining her Italian-American heritage, Melucci starts with the basics like pasta dishes and sauces and soon starts to cook for her first real boyfriend, Kit. While her relationship with Kit ends, her love for cooking continues as she winds her way through the dating world — and several jobs in publishing. She describes several long- and short-lived relationships, ending with 'Lachlan Martyn Was Passionate... About Food,' her most entertaining chapter, about her fling with a Scotsman who left her once she secured a literary agent for him. Melucci, however, rarely makes compelling connections between her love for cooking and her love life (the recipes are uneven, although in their favor not intimidating and amusingly named: 'Morning After Pumpkin Bread' anyone?), and her men are too prosaic to keep the reader entertained for long. But Melucci is an amiable narrator whose book should find an audience among the Sex and the City set." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)