Valentine's Day

On this February afternoon two friends are catching up over blended pink drinks. We're in Boston where winter lasts well into April. There is no snow today and the sun is shining but it's cold. We're talking about healthy things that taste good and are easy to make.

We've been working kitchens together longer than we can remember. It started in 4th floor walk-ups across the hall from each other where dinner for seven meant peas, corn and salad with home-made chili, spaghetti with broccoli and garlic bread. We moved on to sharing secrets for perfect matzo balls (don't potchke), cheese plates at the Wine School, salad dressing, brining turkeys and what to serve at the Christmas block party.

Like our hair, our tastes have changed. We nix meat and dairy and drink more red wine. Our mid-day favors drinks whipped in a blender. When I found it last spring, the blender hadn't been used since the last time I crushed ice. That's when I learned that vegetables can be imbibed.

I was pretty impressed when I cruised one list of Top Valentine’s Day Gifts For Men. But after careful consideration, I decided to go a more traditional route.

See, while the Pickle-of-the-Month gift idea had a certain appeal (pickles are one of Tom’s favorite food groups), when I imagined sitting down to a candlelight dinner on 2/14 and handing him this month’s selection, it just seemed like a buzz kill.

I thought seriously about the personalized romance novel. Called “Blood Lust,” the manufacturer promises the customized book will feature 30 personal details. I’m not sure I have that many personal details (are they gonna discuss my back scratcher? My Necco wafer obsession?), but I am sure I don’t want them exposed in any book, no matter how limited the distribution. (Also, there’s a disconcerting typo in the promo: Cosmopolitan Magazine calls this book “One of the sexist (sic) gifts ever!”)

Another top pick was the Ultimate Stock Car Ride-Along. The giftee gets to ride shotgun, at 150 mph, in a stock car race, with a “professional” driver at the wheel. Now, call me a softie, but I decided I didn’t think it was friendly to gift my husband with an activity that would almost certainly result in his death.

Aside from those choices, I loved the Custom Bobble Head, but it seemed overpriced at $105, and the World’s Largest Gummy Worm seemed like too much of a good thing. So, I decided to head to the kitchen and make Tom some chocolate truffles. (All he really wants is chocolate anyway.)

Rather than a chocolate dessert for Valentine's, I prefer one that's creamy, light, and airy, just like this parfait. Not the layered yogurt concoction in a glass topped with granola and fruit, a parfait is a frozen treat of whipped egg whites and whipped cream flavored with fruit purée. French in origin, the dessert's name, parfait, translates to 'perfect.' Its texture resembles that of mousse, but since it is frozen, it eats much like an ice cream. For this dessert a citrus sponge cake provides the base on which the parfait sits. The blood orange syrup, which is the flavoring and coloring for the parfait, also serves as a drizzle over or alongside the dessert.

A few years ago I tried a parfait for the first time at Pigalle restaurant in New York. In fact it was a blood orange parfait. I was pleasantly surprised that the dessert menu offered this seasonal option as well as a good selection of French classics. I clearly remember it was the dead of winter, so a frozen dessert might not have been most diners' first choice, but for me it was. The parfait was made in a ring mold with a sponge cake bottom and served with syrup. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ever since then, a blood orange parfait has been on my list of recipes to create. Here I make it for Valentine's Day in heart-shaped form using the most beautiful blood oranges.

I have a distinct memory of being eight years old at my mother’s friend’s pool party. They were pretty great parties, all actors, writers and cops. My sister and I had our feet dangling in the Jacuzzi and someone came up to us and said, “You girls look so jaded.”

“What does jaded mean?” I asked him.

“You’ve been there and done that,” he said.

“We are not jaded,” I replied attitudinally. “We’re only 8!”

I guess he was trying to be funny, but the description felt like a death sentence. Although somewhere along the line of being a teenager, I did feel a little jaded. I remember wandering around blank eyed through high school completely bored by the guys I was dating. I wouldn’t even call it dating, it was always ‘hanging out.’

It wasn’t until I got to New York that a sense of romanticism flowed through me. I think I went a little overboard with it and Jeff caught me at exactly the right time to sweep me off my feet, which, in the end, also ended up feeling like a death sentence. But that’s another story…