Valentines, Tea, and Appliances

I was about seven years old when I received a Valentine that made my heart swell. The cutest boy in school, well one of them anyway since the two cutest boys in class happened to be twins, gave me a card that expressed his desire: You are just my cup of tea. I brought the Valentine home and asked for romantic advice from my older sisters. We studied the card, the signature, the envelop it came in. We dissected every conversation I'd ever had with the boy. And we concluded that he obviously was madly in love with me.

Having spent very little time around males outside of our silent father we did not know that typical seven year old boys didn't actually look at the Valentines their mothers forced them to scrawl out each year. No thought was put into the message, and likely the cutest boy in school harbored no desire to hold hands with the odd and awkward blonde who sat in the second row of Mrs. Kill's First Grade classroom.

Valentine's Day is an appropriate time to brave the realities of the world. Perhaps that early lesson is the reason I've never liked tea. Tea is the drink of the brokenhearted. Coffee is the libation of the sturdy and independent. Thankfully, I could depend on my grandpa to provide for me each Valentine's Day. He sent us giant boxes of chocolate each year, and with every sweet bite I was reminded of how much he loved me.

These days I find romance in a lot of places, even in the kitchen. I've never been one to eschew appliances as gifts from a loved one, so when T presented me with a gorgeous food processor for our anniversary a few years back I was more than titillated at his romantic gesture. Ah, passion and amour! Recently a new appliance entered our lives, and I wrote about it in this week's Called to the Table: Romancing the Beet.

Happy Valentine's Day!