Eating, Kissing & Telling. Delicious Dating by Babe Scott. The Single Girl's Guide to Decoding Men by Their Wining & Dining Styles.

Man-eater?

Roughly 3 1/2 years ago, I got an email from a woman called Babe. It was somewhat cryptic and scantly seductive. In this mysterious email she also introduced herself as an Australian journalist living in New York who was working on a book about food, and she was interested in having me as one of her subjects. Curious, I agreed to meet her.

A few months and many emails later, we'd meet face to face. It was decided that I'd pick her up at a friend's deluxe apartment in the sky along the tony stretch of Wilshire Boulevard near UCLA. Unbeknownst to me, this wasn't just a lunch meeting but a date. You see, she was embarking on a book project about dating, eating, drinking and men.

Babe's elevator pitch was that this book was like Sex and the City but with a lot more food. And I was fully aware that she picked me for this culinary tryst because of my predilection for food that wasn't quite dead yet (sannakji) or contained deadly toxins (fugu) or were still in a fetal position quite literally (balut). In other words, she only wanted me for my Deep End Dining skills, if you know what I'm sayin'! High five! Fine with me. I'll be that kinky character in whatever Sex and the City episode where Samantha is in some highly compromising position or positions.

I attempted to shock and awe this Carrie Bradshaw of food by taking her deep into the bowels of Koreatown to lavish her with a meal of writhing octopus tentacles and extra large bottles of Hite. Unfortunately, back then it was a lot more difficult to track down sannakji aka live octopus tentacles since the Prince stopped serving them. However, we did pop into the Prince for their specialty delicacy of sautéed silkworm pods, the tale of which is well-chronicled in Babe's book. We never did have sannakji, but we'll always have silkworm pods.

Now, you can read the juicy deets yourself in Babe Scott's book on decoding men via their eating habits called Delicious Dating. My story is revealed in chapter 5 and titled appropriately enough "Adventure Eaters." I get a respectable amount of ink. Here's just a tease:

This archetype enjoys ambushing your taste buds and assaulting your senses with unusual dishes. Card-carrying Adventure Eater Eddie Lin, author of the food blog Deep End Dining, introduced me to the Korean specialty of sautéed silkworm, a Hitchcockian bug-fest consisting of pupae floating in a brackish brown sauce that looked like it had been siphoned from a local sewer.

Yes, Babe pretty much nails it. And I don't mean the description of the silkworm. She sizes up the Adventure Eater accurately at the dining table and, um, in bed. I don't know if she majored in psychology or just dated a lot of guys, which is why I guess she'd be the Carrie Bradshaw of food.

I'd definitely recommend this book for a guilty pleasure read or even as a guy guide book if you're so inclined. And it's not just because I'm in it. There are a lot more types and a lot more men she, er, dishes about. Somebody stop me!

Everyone knows the way to a man's heart is through his stomach but it's a good way to get at his mind too, and Babe Scott has that figured out!

Valentine's Day is coming fast. Check out Delicious Dating for your favorite food fan.

Babe Scott's website.