I have discovered a magical trick which gets our cat to eat

A particular treat that she loves (catnip-flavored greenies) must be given as an appetizer. We've found a wet food that she likes - actually she didn't like it much until we added some Friskies chicken gravy to it - and she doesn't mind eating the same thing every day. But first, we have to give her a couple treats. Usually I'll put one of them in front of the food bowl, but that's not always necessary. So, she gets the first treat, which motivates her to go get the second one, after which she eats the wet food. After which, we'll put out a bit of dry.

We have it down to a science how much wet food she will actually eat at one sitting - it's less than half an ounce - so we don't waste nearly as much wet food as we used to. We no longer let her eat however much dry food she wants, we ration that out too so she'll be hungry enough for the wet.

This is one particular cat.