Introduce Your Heart to Mine

Intensely deep flavored French Onion Soup - Broth to die for!

Valentine's Day Black Forest Brooklyn Take Out - House made sausages over apple and wine-brined sauerkraut and roasted garlic mashed potatoes.  Chicken Brat basket below.

Valentine's Day is a bogus holiday and it's origins are vague, so I don't buy in, necessarily.  But as an excuse to order take out and try to make an impromptu party, I'm all for it.  Party of course is stretching the word a bit but I did find an amazing thriller-crime series called The Outsider based on Stephen King's novel with Ben Mendelsohn and Jason Bateman, that we binged and loved.  

Romance isn't something you can create by lighting a candle or handing a bunch of red flowers to your mate.  It's elusive and mysterious.  But you can celebrate your bond with your mate and friends, which is a healthier way to interpret this holiday.  Being in love with life services your mates and palentines more than anything and it's also a gift to give yourself because we must first put on our own oxygen mask before we could help anyone.  

 

I'm Sick of Love, But I'm in the Thick of It

Valentine's Day in New York! Hundreds of young men flocking to their local bodegas after work with their wallets out. Its as though they've all been given the exact same list and one by one they're mindlessly checking it off. The dozen red roses, the ugly metallic balloons, the box of heart shaped chocolates. This equals romance and I love you? Or does it?

To me its a little unoriginal and lazy, even though it probably takes a lot of effort. C'mon this is a day to honor your love for your friend and partner. Put a little thought into it! You know, I believe someone could come along and completely reinvent this holiday and sentiment and make it fresh again. The actual idea of celebrating your romance is a great idea.

I have no room to talk. In my youth, I had always despised this particular holiday. Couples looking adoringly at each other. Yuck! And instead of concentrating on what I could do differently, I've just been like the grinch sneering down on all the Who's in Whoville. So at the last minute I thought to do a little creative honoring of my own this year. Something small and thoughtful. I raced out to get Chinese Take Out, Hunan Beef for P, Cashew Nut Chicken for me - two shrimp rolls. I got a few small items that P'd mentioned he needed and put them around the house for him to find, simple little drug store items, nothing elaborate. Just something to let him know I was thinking of him this day.
It's Tuesday night and I know what P wants. And it has nothing to do with romance and the best gift I can give him is to let him be. So we ate at separate times because we're on different schedules and I kept his dish warm in the oven. I let him do what he likes to do on Tuesday nights and I enjoyed a nice dinner myself.

And I Won't Forget What I Did For Love

We celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday because we're both so grouchy on Mondays.  I spent time finding just the right recipes that were both romantic and new.  I settled on French Onion Soup with Loads of Thyme and Griant Gruyere Crostini and Steak with Parmessan Butter and Balsamic Glaze atop Arugula Salad.  I found the recipes on Epicurious.com as always.  I love that site!

I got off work wondering if I bit off more than I could chew.  The night before I had slight cupcake fail with that Guava undertaking. But I did prep work by marinated the steak overnight. I bought all the ingredients which included the Gruyere cheese, ciabatta bread, the Sweet Vidalia onions, the fresh thyme and bay leaves ahead of time.  Magically we had a good bottle of white wine in the house.

On paper both recipes sounded fairly fast and easy, especially the salad.  I was supposed to use rib eye but that's not in the budget so I heavily marinated a london broiler overnight and it proved to do quite well, cut it against the grain and it was tender and delicious. 

But cutting five huge onions thin-sliced takes a good amount of time.  In hindsight I should have used the processor.  Letting the onions get amber colored, takes a good 40 minutes.  Then after you add the wine and broth, its another half hour before you get it under the broiler.  But relatively, this is a simple soup to make. I think you just need to do it right and use good wine and cheese.  And if you follow the recipe, it is SPECTACULAR!  This soup was as good as I ever had in a nice restaurant and the Vidalia onions are so amazingly sweet. 

Once I charred the steak and got a quick broil on it, the sauce and salad was very quick to put together. 

Since the soup took a bit longer than I expected, I held P off with a plate of sliced Red Bartlett Pears, bread & Stilton cheese. 

Now let me tell you, P was busy playing on-line poker through much of my love-fest and he was slightly out of hand when he actually brought the laptop to the table..not kidding.  Yeah.  Mainly, I just wanted to do it.  I made an amazing soup that was better than I had hoped and the salad was everything good on a plate - steak, lemons, arugula, parmessan shavings and I snuck in some pepperoncini peppers.   Who needs romance, affection and attention?  Uh...