Valentine's Day Plans

So originally sweetie and I were going to see vagina monologues at Portland State for Valentine's day, but their production is taking place later in the month instead of actually on Valentine's Day, which makes me terribly sad.

Last Friday I went to Olive or Twist, a FANTASTIC martini bar in the Pearl District, just a few blocks from my work. They had a little piece of paper with the menu advertising their Valentine's Day dinner, a five course french meal the looked delicious. So I was thinking that would be fun. but then as I thought about it, I realized that I really couldn't spend $100 plus tip plus drinks for Valentine's Day.

Instead I decided to make dinner. I did that last year (Lobster tails thermador on a bed of greens with velvet asparagus soup) but Joel, in all his clueless manness didn't realize that when I asked him if I could cook him dinner for Valentine's Day that I wanted it to be a romantic evening alone. Joel's father is living at his place and Joel failed to ask him if he would mind working late that night. I swear... sweetie is one of the smartest people I've ever met, but he sure can be dumb sometimes. Anyways, so it was a romantic dinner for three, we ate on the couch while watching a game.

This time, I told my parents (how lame is it that we're two grown people both living with at least one parent? True, Rick moved into Joel's house, not the other way around, but still) to go have a romantic dinner (they're going to Olive or Twist btw) and leave me the house.

I will be making Lamb Chops Au Poivre (like steak au poivre, but with lamb) and roasted asparagus dressed with wine and vinegar and a sweet pea risotto, I like to add a bit of tang to my risotto wit ha squeeze of lemon in the stock, try it, you'll like it. Joel will eat the asparagus but pick around the peas and call the risotto rice, which, yes, it techinically is, but that's beside the point. I will also have a bakery bought mini tiramisu, I normally don't do dessert but it's Valentine's Day, you need sweets for your sweetie. Maybe we'll even cuddle up on the couch and watch Casablanca, how much more disgusting could we be right? I cannot wait for his dad to move out and me to move in so that things like this don't need to be such a big production.

Hopefully it goes over well. I rarely cook for sweetie because he's just not much of a foodie and I like people to be impressed when I make something fabulous. I think my favorite person to cook for is my friend's chef husband, he always realizes how much work went into each delightful morsel. Plus it always feels good to get a compliment from someone who spent $40,000 to go to culinary school.