Valentines

chopping-food.jpgSharing things is always dicey, and dicing while cooking together is definitely no exception.   The kitchen can morph into a metallic boxing ring.  One of you is the wild, inventive cook and the other is the chop-a-holic, compulsive one.  But one thing I’ve realized after decades of co-cooking is that both co-chef-partners are actually doing the same things, just at different moments. 

Take me, for example.  I am not a compulsive dicer and slicer, but I do like my implements put back in their proper places.  My co-cooker partner likes to splatter garlic when throwing it with wild abandon into a pan, but follows recipes as if his children’s lives depended on it. 

The trick is to find a way to have our mutating cooking styles come together rather than clash.  In formal holiday moments, I have learned to stand back and let him plan away.

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chocolate_love.jpgLet's just admit to ourselves right now: if you're single on Valentine's Day, it may make you feel bitter. And not in the really good, bitter chocolate kind of way. Valentine's is so heavily commercialized nowadays that it can be difficult to avoid all the signs pointing to the fact that you're alone. The cutesy, overly-decorated cards with sayings you'll never actually say? Check. The restaurants that cater to couples who'll pay for overpriced meals just because everyone else is? Double check.

I don't know about you, but as a single woman on Valentine's Day, I say heck no to that. Just because you may not have someone to make goo-goo eyes at (does anyone still use that phrase?), why should this occasion mean any less for you? What do you have to feel bitter about, when you're already such an amazing, confident and live-life-to-it's-fullest kind of woman? Valentine's Day is just like any other day you'll be single on – although, you'll be more aware of it thanks to the aforementioned signs. Instead of beating ourselves up over such a ridiculous standard, I say it's time we turn that bitterness into the really good, chocolatey goodness kind. You know that bag of candy, piece of cake or heart-shaped cookie you've been eyeing? Go for it. Don't mind the fact that you're buying it for yourself; rather, revel in that.

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From the N.Y. Times

computerheart.jpgIf finding true love were an exact science, we wouldn’t need matchmakers, singles bars or, of course, online dating services.

Like job seekers who take the Myers-Briggs personality test to help steer them to suitable professions, we’d simply take a relationship test, whose results would identify our most compatible types of mates and rule out the frogs. Problem solved.

Of course, Cosmopolitan magazine has been running pop psychology love quizzes — “Which Bachelor Is Right for You?,” “Is He Naughty or Nice?” — for decades, prompting young women the world over to assess how sexually or socially compatible they might be with their objects of desire.

Now, a handful of dating Web sites are competing to impose some science, or at least some structure, on the quest for love by using different kinds of tests to winnow the selection process. In short, each of these sites is aiming to be the Netflix of love.

Instead of using a proprietary algorithm to recommend movies you might enjoy, based on your past choices, however, these dating sites offer you a list of romantic candidates whose selection is based on proprietary analyses of personality characteristics or biological markers.

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party.jpgAll couples have the story of how they met. Ours comes with a small bit of fate – if you even believe in that sort of thing. It was Christmas-time and the charity I worked for was throwing a small bash to thank our local volunteers and meet some of our vendors. It even included an uptight board member or two. My future husband-to-be was not officially invited. He had other plans that night; however, his date canceled at the last minute to finish her holiday shopping. So, he called his good friends, Peter and Jo, to see what they were up to. Jo, being Jo, invited him to join them at my party. They were only about 15 minutes ahead of him and, she cajoled, the charity was chock-full of single women. She was not lying about that. Ten of the eleven employees were young women. Of course, since she had never met any of us, she did not vouch for our attractiveness.

I got their side of the story from them at a later date. Apparently, they had scoped me out and then engaged me in witty repartee until the unknown man of my dreams arrived. We were already fast friends by the time Dave turned up – aided a bit by some very strong margaritas – and in no time we were all chatting as if we'd known each other for years. It goes without saying, I gave him my card – though it was the first time in my life I had agreed to go on a date with a man who until moments before was a total stranger.

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