I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti: A Memoir by Giulia Melucci

An exquisite dish of gnocchi disappears beneath a fork leaving only the fond memory of a full, satisfied stomach; but the aftermath of love lost can be a bit harder to swallow. While a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey is often the soul-searching way to look for answers that will unfortunately never come from an empty tub and dirty spoon, author Giulia Melucci found the best medicine to mend a broken heart: write a book about all of the terrible relationships you've gone through over the past 20 years.

They say the best way into a man's heart is through his stomach: an idea Melucci subscribes to in her memoir, I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. In her charming, laugh-out-loud journey of "good food and bad boyfriends," Melucci chronicles her life as a single New Yorker with a passion for food and love. Although she doesn't always win the hearts of her various love interests, she spends a good deal of time in the kitchen trying.

"The spirit and generosity behind cooking is a way of loving, a way to seduce people by showing them this talent you have," Melucci says of the similarities between food and love. Her philosophy on cooking is one of simplicity. She believes that people should cook often, as "cooking is impossibly easy" (pg. 192). Heavily influenced by her Italian heritage and mother's cooking, Melucci provides the reader with everything from Simple Tomato Sauce and Pasta for Two to Risotto with Intricately Layered Hearts. Her recipes interspersed throughout the memoir are accessible, fresh and delicious. Technique: Melucci says that salting pasta water is essential, so don't be afraid to use a heavy hand.

Cooking a perfect bowl of minestrone may be a cinch for Melucci, but love doesn't always end up with such a flawless presentation. "When things are not perfect, you do external things to try to make them perfect." For Melucci, this was her graced hand in the kitchen. The men's picky palates seem to be neon signs for love gone awry, as she tailors her recipes to their likes and dislikes: pot roast for the plain palate or add vanilla to these pancakes, "but not if you're dating Mitch Smith." Tip: Regardless of taste, no Italian kitchen is complete without garlic to give your dishes flavor and flare.

As the relationships in the book progress, so does Melucci's honesty, criticism and wit about the men who have traveled in and out of her life as well as her kitchen. For Melucci, the best part of writing the book was her ability to be blatantly honest about the people with whom she was still really angry. "My feelings were really not conflicted, so I didn't care about what I said. I didn't feel any need to protect their feelings. Whereas some of the other people I still care about, I felt like I had to be more careful."

Dating editors, writers, cartoonists from The New Yorker and Rolling Stone or bohemian types from Williamsburg ("the hipster capital of New York City, if not the entire world"), she enters into the world of men's idiosyncrasies. Subtle changes in behavior, like the switch from a "nice French roast" to Café Bustelo" in a lover's kitchen, are the hidden signs that those in love are often blind. A failed ultimatum and a breakup email (reminiscent of the post-it note breakup from Sex and the City) are just some of the ways that heartbreak comes to her table. But a Victory Breakfast (better known as a bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll) for breakfast, a dish of Pastina for lunch, and Internet shopping for dinner prove to be valuable distractions from the loneliness that ensues.

Melucci's journey addresses "the conflict about being in a relationship and about what is good about being alone." In her opinion, there are a lot of good things about being alone. Melucci's dishes in the Single Girl Supper chapter, "born out of random couplings dictated by whatever is available, are the ones that make me the saddest." She is the only one who tastes them and knows how brilliant they are. "I'm conflicted whether that is good enough, just as I'm conflicted about whether it's better to be with someone or to be alone." (pg. 189)

While attempting to cook pork at high temperatures in her New York apartment was Melucci's worst food experience (Technique: try slow-cooking pork to avoid similar grease fires), the final love interest in the book, Lachlan, was her worst relationship and the catalyst for I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. "The day after he left, I just started writing about these disastrous relationships that I had. I didn't know what would happen. The idea for the book hit me while I was writing about making a pear cake (Pear Cake for Friends with Benefits) for this guy who wanted to sleep with me, but wasn't interested in a relationship. It hit me then that I had a unique tale to tell, few women would bake in such a situation." The premise behind the memoir came naturally, Melucci explains, "As I was writing, I believed that an idea would come and it did."

In the end, it seems that I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti provides Melucci with the recipe for what went wrong and how to make it right in the future both in and out of the kitchen. Obviously love is not as easy as cooking, but Melucci believes, "Love is easy when you find the right love. It's about the right time and everybody's time is different. It's hard when you're in the dregs of misery to believe this time will ever come. But it does." Until that day, you'll just have to settle for the gnocchi.

(Melucci's best relationship is her current one, which you can't read about in I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. Her main squeeze is presently reading the book.)

— Written by Christina Licata

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