Valentine’s Day is awful. A disease — an intractable infliction in need of its own foundation to donate millions of dollars towards finding a cure This is a fact and a foregone conclusion for the male of the species. Many females too. However, what if you changed the name to something like, “Day to eat delicious food with your loved one(s).” That doesn’t sound so bad, as long as you don’t waste your time going out to an overcrowded restaurant whose wait staff herds patrons through like cattle and whose kitchen staff will serve any rotten piece of food as long as it is heart shaped. That is what all restaurants invariably turn into on Valentine’s Day — if you can even get a table. Instead, celebrate Eat Delicious Food Day at home. Pull out all the stops, spare no expense on ingredients, and spend the entire day in the kitchen — just do the shopping before the actual day. This is what has become my tradition, and it just happens to fall on February 14th every year!
So let me start with the menu and then I will explain how I arrived at that conclusion
1st course – Camerones de ajillo, Spanish style
2nd course – Home made wild mushroom and goat cheese stuffed ravioli with pistachio pesto
3rd course – Sesame seed encrusted seared yellow tail with sun choke puree
4th course – Chocolate mousse
How did I come up with this menu? A combination of serendipity, available kitchen supplies, and available ingredients…
On Eat Delicious Food Day, I like to stick with what I know how to cook. I typically save the experimentation for days like Tuesday. And what I know best is Italian food. So the initial plan was to cook a traditional Tuscan meal — ravioli en brodo (ravioli in broth), pollo arrosto (whole roasted chicken) con spinaccio al fiorentina al contorno (spinach sautéed with garlic and tomatoes on the side).
Problem one with that meal is that my oven is broken, so no go on the roasted chicken. I could still make the ravioli, though, and stuff them with whatever good ingredients I find in the store. But I needed another meat. So I headed to whole foods in search of a protein and some bones — any bones — with which to make a stock. Whole Foods would be the deciding factor on what to make.
