Showing your affection on Valentine's Day is for amateurs. Letting your partner know that you want to “insert it” on, say, August 23rd is for seasoned lovers.

But we'll play your game, Hallmark.

Patti and I cooked an amazing Valentine's Day dinner for each other. It started with hors douvers hors duorves an appetizer of strawberries and gouda cheese. You better believe that after each bite some ding dong said ad nauseam, "That's-a good-a cheese." My black eye is healing nicely, thank you.

Patti asked, "Do you think farmers ever get tired of saying strawberry so instead they say strawb?"

I said, "N-." 

For the main entrée, we ate crab cakes, which I had never made before, but I most definitely will again. You know you're a champ at a recipe when you eat its raw ingredients despite the threat of salmonella. It was essentially the kind of meal that Jesus would prepare if he were in love* and showing off in the kitchen. One minor setback to our perfect meal was that The Joy of Cooking recommended aioli sauce as the perfect crab cake condiment. The Joy of Cooking is a fucking liar. Luckily the crab cakes proved to be awesome good delicious all by themselves, so we made sure to save some leftovers to make our co-workers jealous.

During the evening we sipped a 2004 Albarino that went so well with the food that it prompted me to say, "I'm going to take a picture of this strawberry."

To which Patti said, "You should take a picture of me farting," and then farted. I went back to drinking the wine and Patti was subsequently cut off from the bar.

With her newfound lust for cinnamon and brown sugar, Patti lovingly crafted a sweet dessert, sauteed pears a la mode. We a la chomped the life out of it. I even had a la seconds which put me over the edge and our four-hour love-meal ended the same as our fifteen minute like-meals, starry eyed, with my stomach out, pretending to be pregnant.

* With one woman only. Not all of mankind. Also, anti-Semites need not apply.