This is a love story. Of that, there’s no doubt. And you sort of see what’s going to happen between boy and girl from the outset. But the charm of The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is truly the journey and not the destination.

Don Tillman works in a genetics lab and there is order to every aspect of his life. He wears the same clothes on every single Monday, he cooks the same meal on every single Tuesday, he doesn’t waste a single minute of his time that could be spent doing something else more valuable. He bikes to work so that he doesn’t waste time commuting and therefore is at least exercising, and he can’t stand small talk. That is, to be more precise, he doesn’t quite know how to make it.

Don is rather socially challenged; in fact, he rather sadly lectures about Asperger’s without recognizing that he displays all the symptoms. But of course, that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t spend the rest of his life alone. Like every other venture in his life, he takes up The Wife Project, a highly scientific questionnaire designed to help him find the appropriate wife – a non-drinking, non-smoking, paragon of virtue in his mind (suffice to say that this Barbie doll does not exist). Enter Rosie, a brash, nutty, flurry of a woman who challenges everything Don believes makes up the ideal woman. But she’s not after him for romance; she wants to use his connections in the genetics lab to locate her biological father. 

Yes, they’ll end up together. The cover is bright red with hearts on it, so I’m not the spoiler alert. But how they get there is truly magical. After all, isn’t the journey what makes the greatest love stories worth swooning over?

We coincided the meal for this book with Valentine’s Day, a holiday that neither Rohit nor I are particularly keen on. So, we invited a couple that we love over to enjoy a red and pink feast.

We started with appetizers: a beautiful smoked salmon carpaccio with pomegranate purée, diced red apple, blood orange zest and dill. 

 And a roasted cherry tomato crostini with sun dried tomato, piquante pepper, habanero and roasted garlic for some spice and sweetness. 

We continued on to a grilled hangar steak taco with harissa marinade, red beet and red onion relish and sliced radish. 

And finally, for the sit down portion of the meal, poached red beet salad with red wine vinegar, crispy kale leaf, macadamia nut…

…and a roasted monkfish tail with Kashmiri chili-infused tomato curry, crispy ginger, and curry leaf. 

I made (non red) chocolate mousse as a more typical Valentine’s Day dessert. It wasn’t Don Tillman’s version of a Valentine’s Day (truly, what is?) but the holiday is all about love, and with Rohit and me and Sylvester and Shabnam (who got married the same year we did, in fact!), there was a whole lot of love at the end of this culinary journey.