Originally published in 2002.

Across a crowded room in Venice, Marlena de Blesi is seen by a stranger who persuades her to leave her life as a chef and journalist in America to live with him in Italy. This book is her account of what followed. It is an inherently sentimental story, but her 'stranger' is no knight in shining armour, just an ordinary human being who just happens to be the love of her life. As she attempts to adjust to a different culture and absorb the sights and sounds of magical Venice, he too has to learn to accept that the profile he first fell in love with belongs to a three-dimensional woman. Marlena loves Fernando but she also loves to cook. So much the better, if her food can be shared by someone who also loves to eat. However, this is more than a book about sex and cooking. Her descriptions of markets at the Rialto, the preparation and consumption of meals, the loving and sensual details of luscious ingredients, together with descriptions of her romantic house in America and the changes wrought in Fernando's distinctly unpromising flat on the Lido all reveal a woman who will seize and enjoy the moment. Starting to live together as strangers, Marlena and Fernando also have to contend with more practical matters, such as getting things done in Italy in all its bureaucratic glory, as Fernando demonstrates the 'innocent cunning' needed for life there. As their relationship develops, the meals they eat together come to symbolize the love between them.