Nobody You should go to a restaurant for Valentine’s Day dinner this year, but that doesn’t mean you should resign yourself to eating styrofoam shells or fatty pizza boxes. (Eating pizza straight out of the box is a hack – but not a romance hack.) Whether you’re preparing your meal or calling her, treating the evening like dinner for two will ensure a special and thoughtful tone.
Basically, if it is a change that you would burst for dinner, you should burst for dinner that will serve on February 14th. Dinners are meant to impress people with how mature and caring you are, which is a vibe that should be extended to your boyfriend, who is – more than likely – the person you’ve been with almost constantly for an entire year. . Attention to detail can be a language of love and can make a meal at home seem different, even if you haven’t left home for more than 11 months.
Set the table
If you have “beautiful” dishes, use them. If you have kids, ban them at night so you don’t have to worry about them breaking the good dishes (ask them to watch a movie or put them to sleep early). However, don’t use dishes that are so good that you can’t put them in the washing machine, or dishes that are so good that you’re eager to eat them. After all, this should be fun.
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After choosing the dishes, you can focus on the rest of the table. Cutlery, cloth napkins and, yes, candles are things that make the meal more intentional and careful. I also recommend placing the cards, even if there are only two seats at the table. Write the name of your Valentine’s Day on a fluffy cardboard or – better yet – a clementine (take the type with leaves still attached if you can), place it in front of the chair and watch your face light up with the lovely detail and edible.
Heat your plates and cool your glasses
If you are going to bother to cook a beautiful rare steak, or mix a perfectly chilled and diluted martini, you can go one step further and serve them in a container that does not negatively affect their temperature in one way or another. For dishes that will be awarded hot food, just place them in a low temperature oven (the smallest that goes) on a baking sheet for a few minutes before serving time. (This is also a good move for brunch – few things spoil a hot egg like a cold dish.)
If you’re going to serve a salad, put the salad plates in the refrigerator (for 20 minutes) freezer (if you’re in a hurry) to help keep your greens cold and crispy. This may not be necessary, depending on how warm you keep your home, but it is useful if your dishes are fresh and hot from the dishwasher.
If you are going to serve cocktails, white wine or even Diet Coke, put some elegant glasses in the freezer while preparing the meal. This is a particularly pleasant move – some may say “crucial” – if you are going to have martinis, which are at their best when they are cold.
Learn some sophisticated plating tricks
I didn’t expect the artistic coating to be one of the things I missed during this pandemic, but it is – I miss the completely white plates with their negative spaces and carefully placed trim. People really do eat with your eyes first , and while carving mashed potatoes may seem silly at the moment, it looks like a careful chore on the plate. If you are uncomfortable with this amount of bourgeois decay, at least finish your plate with a little lemon, a drizzle of good olive oil or sprinkle with some fresh herbs and crunchy thing,.
Don’t forget the butter (and the good salt)
An ample supply of butter at room temperature is what separates my favorite bread restaurants from the rest. If a waiter brings me butter with some kind of flaked salt, I am theirs for the night and will follow them to hell, or at least the most expensive pages on the wine menu. It’s a powerful move, that’s what I’m saying, and you can take advantage of its power by putting a good butter (which is different from your everyday butter), good salt (Maldon or similar) and a pepper mill filled with whole peppercorns.
If your meal or Valentine’s Day requires any condiment, pickles or sauce, be sure to prepare all this before dinner is served so that no one has to leave the table, and clean bottles and caps of these condiments before putting them out. You can also transfer them to cute bowls with cute serving spoons, but cleaning the hot sauce bottle should be enough.
Discuss the division of labor in advance
If you are presenting the meal as a “gift”, then cleaning up the mess you make in the kitchen should be part of that. One of the best things about going out on Valentine’s Day is not having to clean anything, so don’t impose an unexpected task on your partner or spouse.
If the meal is a combined effort, split the job before February 14th. Decide who is making the main course, who is making the dessert and who is in charge of the drinks, music and cleaning program ahead of time so as not to end up fighting on a night that should be romantic. Do this even if you are getting take-out food. Throwing the plastic take-out container into the dishwasher after dinner is not as difficult as cleaning the grease from a cast iron pan, but it is still an order, and you may want to order other activities after dinner.