Be My Valentine

Dear single women on Valentine’s Day:

I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a few dishes for you and I’d like to invite you to join me for dinner. Please sit down and know that someone out there is thinking of you today.

Being single is all fine and good while you’re looking for the “right’ one. However, on certain days, such as February 14th, the single people of the world are bashed over the head with reminders they are single. Tonight is simply an invitation to join me for dinner and enjoy singledom together. Who knows what tomorrow shall bring?

In honor of St. Valentine’s day, I went with a menu from the heart. No cookbooks or recipes, I was inspired by you and places we should travel together. For the first course, I prepared an avocado salad with shrimp served in the shell. I had this dish in a restaurant in Montreal. I remember being served this with the avocado being smooth, but I left it a bit chunky to give it a little more texture along with the shrimp. Since we’re in Montreal, I envision us walking hand-in-hand through Old Montreal after dinner on the cobble-stoned streets and maybe sneaking in to a cozy little café to grab an after dinner drink.

I figured if there’s a day to spice up the plate presentation, it’s probably today. So I went ahead and blended up some sugar and cinnamon hearts to add a little red to the plate. Oh and I added a pinch of cilantro in the salad because I know how much you enjoy it.

For tonight’s main, let’s close our eyes for a moment and set out to a little place of heaven in Italy called Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre translates to “Five Lands” and it’s the most incredible place overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It’s located in the north-west part of Italy in the Liguria region. In addition to its beauty, Liguria is known for their pesto and rightfully so as it’s the best I’ve ever had. I’m hoping to re-create the magic of Cinque Terre for you tonight.

So with Cinque Terre as inspiration, I made a homemade sun-dried tomato pesto to go with the fresh saffron fettuccine I bought at the market. I also couldn’t help myself, so I used a cookie-cutter to make heart-shaped bread.

I don’t have a specific destination in mind for dessert, so I was hoping you’d decide where we’d end up. Where would you like to go? While you give it some thought, I “whipped” up a little something special for you. I gave the strawberries a bath in Goldschläger for a couple hours and tossed in some of that cinnamon heart sugar into the homemade whipped cream to give it a lovely pink tone. It’s sweet with a little bit of heat, just like you!

With dinner complete, I’d like to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to prepare dinner for you tonight, I had a wonderful time and I hope you did as well. It was a pleasure being a part of your Valentine’s Day and I hope we can travel to all those places together very soon.

To all the singles and couples out there, wishing you all a happy St. Valentine’s Day.

I’ll be posting the recipes in a few days. Tonight was simply to live in the moment and not to be concerned with measurements and such. And if you were wondering, I’m cleaning the dishes too.