"If you are preparing a proper meal, always leave yourself plenty of time, no matter how long it says in the recipe. Give yourself an extra half hour. It's a coordination thing. And you shouldn't give oral pleasure on the first date. That should be for the second week."

The Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs (W.W. Norton, $24.95), the latest novel from Welsh, is certainly about food and sex, but it's more about imbibing copious amounts of alcohol and the strange, symbiotic relationship between Danny Skinner and the curse he puts on his rival Brian Kibby.

Welsh was inspired by Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray and stories like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to create these vivid characters — a pair of young Edinburgh restaurant inspectors — who share a bond that is very much like The Corsican Brothers. That is, when Danny drinks to excess, Brian gets the hangover.

"I was interested in thinking about two characters, one a philandering drunk and the other a nice mother's boy. You see that [Danny] the drunk is a nice guy and does actually respect women, but Kibby has a lot of hang-ups and sexual issues. It's looking at the duality, the differences and similarities between people," Welsh says.

Asked which character he's closer to, the author replies candidly, "I used to be very close to Danny, but I'm probably closer to Brian now."

The Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs is chock-full of Welsh's trademark visceral images — what do you expect from the author of a book called Filth? And the brilliant scene he plans to read at the Free Library, involving Danny attempting to break the curse on Kibby by sleeping with an obese old woman, will certainly invoke laughter and disgust.

Welsh practically apologizes for these passages. "I don't know where these [scenes] come from. If I thought [about it], I'd be so disturbed I'd never write again. I think they come from the extremes the characters find themselves in."

That said, Welsh admits that what makes him squeamish are moths, "because I swallowed one once. It fell into this glass of milk by the side of the bed."

Just desserts? Or a recipe to avoid? You decide.