valentines day

For Valentine's Day, I took part of the day off in order to put together a fantastic dinner for Karin. Our first Valentine's Day took a lot of effort, driving to and from Boston, setting up our studio apartment in the city for a romantic getaway & dinner, flowers from Winstons, great wine, great food. I figured I was up to the task of at least reproducing such an extravaganza, if not outdoing myself.
After going to work for a few hours, I was on the road to Whole Foods, Martys, and Winstons. At the apartment, I brought the table into our foyer, which is now our dining room, set it up with our best linens, our wedding china, glasses and silver. The flowers (purple anemones) went into several vases around the room, and one on the table. The menu for the night : roast crispy duck, warm spinach salad with Great Hill blue, candied walnuts and sliced pear, and a wild mushroom risotto. All afternoon it was a combination of cooking, arranging, rearranging and putting the finishing touches on everything.
At the right time, I went over to pick up Karin from work. I called her at her office as I was walking in the door, and surprised her with a single longstemmed rose. She was thrilled that I got out of work early to pick her up.
We got home, and were taking our shoes off in the hallway outside our apt (snow and slush). I unlocked the door and let it swing open as Karin was explaining how nice it was for us both to be home at the same time, when I cleared my throat and she looked up to see candles everywhere, flowers too, the set table, and a wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen.
A nice big smile on Karins face and my day was complete! I opened one of the two bottles of Frederic Magnien Côte de Nuits - made the mistake of buying Great wine. I thought the wine we drank was good. Oh boy.
Karin and I prepared the chocolate dipped strawberries. Actually, I melted the chocolate, she dipped them.

Dinner was fantastic, romantic and tasty! I made a port wine/fig glaze for the duck.
For dessert, we had the strawberries with champagne, the last split of Chandon from James and Beth's wedding ! Perfect end to a romantic evening.