This sweet little guy brought a heart shaped box of Russell Stover's to school for Carrie something-or-other, and then he ended up being too afraid to give them to her and, frankly, none of us could blame him. That wasn't going to go well. Love can be rough. He was quite a few years shy of being old enough for his friends to go out and get him drunk. I hope he ate the chocolates- they were the best you could buy in our isolated town in the North Country- there was no See's Candy, and no one had heard of Godiva, let alone Teuscher, or Neuhaus (we'd barely even heard of Switzerland or Belgium- we were 8). There were a lot of these episodes. The only good thing to come out of this was learning to root for the underdog of romance (little guy with the Russell Stover's, Colonel Brandon, any John Cusack character....). Anyway, every day is a holiday when you're in love. Designating a special day? That's just all kinds of pressure.
Not that we don't celebrate Valentine's day at our house- we do! We celebrate everything. We eat only red food- nothing challenging- beet vinaigrette, penne all'arrabbiata- no red velvet cake because it freaks me out a little. Usually we make rolled sugar cookies, heart shapes, sandwiched together with red jam and the top cookie with another shape cut out of it like a window- a small duck, a piglet. We make lots of them, and the girls give them to their friends, and so do I. We make chocolates too. There is some romance, but it's all on screen. This year we'll see Imagine Me and You- the girls were more in a Lemony Snicket stage when it came out, so we missed seeing it together. A nice bonus- a world where homogeneous heterosexuality is just assumed feels to us small and sad and dull (one of the few ways Greece sometimes disappoints, but, to be fair, we are comparing it to San Francisco). If I'm not wrong, this sweet movie was not overly self-conscious- much more plain love story than "gay love story." If we feel like a dose of underdog, we go for Notting Hill or, kind of obviously, High Fidelity.
Here are some things we make throughout the year, because they are easy, and easy to share, and we have fun in the kitchen together, and everyone likes them a lot. I put them in order of easiest to least easy (but still easy), with the links under the pictures. Wish you a happy, low-key, messy Valentine's Day.
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| Chocolate Covered Strawberries |
Love is great. It's romantic love that stirs up all the trouble. You never go wrong staying in the kitchen, and sharing something sweet with everyone dear to you.
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I love that Strawberries start their
hothouse season so early-
we had our first this week, and they were good! |
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