Candlelit Breakfast

The cats woke me at dawn with cries for food and love and the sound of my slippers shuffling down the hall to start the rhythm of their day.  I filled their china bowls, shifted the curtains, watched the first flakes of another storm, then turned with a shiver to put the kettle on.

In the bedroom my love still lay asleep, wrapped in cotton and linen and the shifting pictures of a morning dream.  Here, in the tiled kitchen, I lit a matchstick, let it touch each candle on the table until I'd burned the match to its quick and the wicks flickered gold against the grey.

I scooped silver forks and spoons from their chest, set out the Polish amber crystal for juice, glazed blackberries with maple syrup until they glittered like onyx.  

The spiced pumpkin pancakes sizzling in the skillet were not silver dollars, but rich, golden coins.  True, you can't buy love, I thought, but breakfast makes a good trade.  

The kettle whistled, my love awoke, and now full of all they needed, the cats fell back asleep in their rocking chair, lulled by our soft laughter and the schoosh, schoosh, schoosh of snow blowing against the slate roof of the church next door.  

My heart, now full, found the rhythm of its day.  

   

Hearts and Food and Love

Okay, I told you I am a sucker for Valentine's Day.  Last night I made a heart bunting with paper doilies and some lovely sequined, pink yarn that I crocheted into a chain.  I pinned it up over the bed with silver map pins, and it is pretty glorious in a homemade Valentine-y way.

I have started making a menu for Valentine's dinner.  I'll share it later in the week, along with a recipe or two.  I'll likely make salmon carpaccio with watercress tossed in olive oil, garlic, and lemon on top of a bed of orzo.  Oh, and homemade bread to sop up the dressing.  For an appetizer, I'm thinking red peppadews (because they look like little hearts), stuffed with Neal's Yard Dairy stilton.

Dessert will be a surprise.  I'll share that recipe, too.  It will most certainly involve chocolate.  In my heart and mind, chocolate=love.

On Being Unabashedly, Unapologetically, Wholeheartedly Old-Fashioned When it Comes to Valentine's Day

I believe in romance.  

I believe in flowers--the frothier and frillier and girlier the better--wrapped in paper with ribbon and a handwritten note.  I believe in roses and candles and a kiss on a terrace, and serenades and love poems and x's and o's.  I believe in a starlit walk through a park in the snow and in the warmth of a hand holding another's, tucked deep in the folds of an overcoat.  I believe in Louis Armstrong on vinyl--and Ella and Edith and Dean and, oh, anyone whose voice makes your heart beat fast and the night go slow.  I believe in red and white and pink and lace and dark truffles dipped in cocoa.  

I believe in the gesture, the smile, the sweet word softly spoken in the wee hours with the lights low.  I believe in the slow dance that lingers when the song is over.  I believe in the hand that cradles my neck and the one that holds my own.  I believe in never looking back.  I believe in never letting go.