Valentine's Day Dreaming

Okay, I admit it. I know I said it was okay if we didn't celebrate Valentine's Day, but honey, I’m as girly as girly can be sometimes. Sure, I’m a rock climber, I rather enjoy a bout of hard, physical labor at times, and I don’t wear trendy clothes or even comb my hair in the morning (Hey! I'm a scientist, after all!). But when Valentine’s Day comes around – be it a mere holiday capitalized upon by the commercial card industry or no – deep down inside, I want the whole shebang. I’m not talking about dozens of $150 roses, hydrogenated milk chocolates that come in shiny heart-shaped red boxes, teddy bears with plastic hearts with “I love you” stamped across them, or drippingly sappy cards expressing your undying love for me and how it’s as "deep as an ocean" or makes you feel "as free as a bird" (although I do like sappy sentiments as much as the next girly girl) – I’m talking about food, baby! Food. Delicious, lovely, rich, sexy food.

No, I don’t want to go and fight off the masses of starry-eyed lovers holding hands across the dinner table at some $300 pre fix menu (although, being a reasonable woman, I would happily accompany you any other night as your date for a $300 pre fix menu and/or gaze at you across a dinner table with starry eyes). Truly, all I want is a dinner at home, cooked together, good music on in the background and a fabulous (though not necessarily expensive) wine in hand. Bonus points if the wine actually compliments the dinner too.

And while we're on the subject, should you feel so inclined, I love flowers too. No, there’s no need to give me roses, or even buy me flowers – a single stem of some flower that you found beautiful or picked yourself (in February? Well, just don’t get arrested then, because I certainly don’t want to spend the night alone because of that!) would be more than adequate. We could put it that old antique Coke bottle and make it the centerpiece of our dining table and it would be positively heartwarming...and heck, we could even gaze at each other across the table and the coke bottle with starry eyes if you wanted to. But even flowers come second to food.

Because as I said before, it’s really all about the food. What kind of food would we make then? Delicious, lovely, rich, sexy food of course. How about soft piles of pillowy homemade pasta? A little flour on our hands and our cheeks is just as sexy, or more so, as some slinky lingerie, don’t you think? Can’t you imagine rolling out the layers of dough together, laughter emerging from the kitchen, and fingers brushing softly as we try and hold the layers up? And the sauce...how about an oozy, creamy, silky sauce? How about fontina, Parmesan, farm-fresh eggs, and the scent of truffles and fresh marjoram kissing the surface of each slender, hand-cut piece? Sound rich enough for you? Sexy enough for you?

Now, wouldn't that be worth the teeny tiny bit of extra effort required? What do you care if it's on February 14th? Even if it is a commercially endorsed holiday? If your girl is happy, you're happy, right? And I know you don't like to pass up delicious food. Well, okay, now you know. I've said my peace, I've admitted my girliness (and you know how tough that is for this girl). Maybe next year then...