Valentine's Day!

I got a real treat yesterday, as my wife decided she was going to cook her spaghettini alla bolognese. It's one of the things she makes, and I have no idea how she does it. All I know is that it takes about six hours to prepare the sauce, and that trotters are involved somehow. Since she'll never tell me how, I'll just be a happy recipient of her good graces. I love it any time she decides she's going to cook, because she's a lot better at it than she'll admit.

So, to keep me from going insane by smelling bolognese all day, I decided to make few light little munchies in the afternoon to tide us over until dinner was ready.


This is a great way to give an appearance of classy food without really spending anything. The caviar on top is whitefish roe, which tastes great and really doesn't cost anything. You can get a jar that'll make about twenty of these things for around three dollars at Target. The spread beneath is crème fraîche I picked up at Whole Foods for about $2.50. Then again, you can pretty much make the stuff at home with a little heavy cream and milk, but I've never done it. Beneath that are little crostinis from the baguettes I made in a previous blog posting. Crostini are such a great way to get rid of bread endbits that you don't want to go stale. A little quick toast on thin slices and they're up.

My wife made me a blue vodka drink thing, so I served it up with the caviar because vodka just goes like that. The blue thing is a bit of nerdiness in that we used to pass an aisle with an electric blue hurricane mix at the liquor store. I would pause, and in my best Shatner stutter-lilt, would say "Romulan Ale? Why Bones, you know this is illegal." It's something only really funny to us I think, so for V-Day, she gave me a decanter of blue vodka. I love her!

After many hours of waiting, my wife's dinner was served, with a toasty & buttery glass of Merlot:


The best part of the dish is that some tomatoes are fully sauced, and some of the (San Marzano?) tomatoes are essentially in big halves or something. They fall apart against the flat of a fork, and you get that really big burst of sunny tomato coming on strong in the midst of the rest of the sauce. I have no trouble admitting that my baby makes better spaghetti than I ever will. I guess it's a Sicilian thing, but I won't question it. The only thing I ask now is that I get this treat more often than not.