Valentine's Day

Today is a special day in Casa de Son, as it marks the 2-year anniversary of "when things got real." Actually, things were pretty real right from the start three weeks earlier, but Roland really pulled out all the stops on Valentine's Day '09...in a little plan he now refers to as "Operation Woo."

I arrived at R's apartment that Saturday evening with my contribution to his home cooked Valentine's meal - a few scraggly heart(blob)-shaped blueberry muffins. As I had not yet sampled Roland's cooking and didn't realize I was dating a gourmet-worthy cook, I wasn't immediately embarrassed by my sad baking skills. All I knew was that my sweet, 24-year-old almost boyfriend was cooking dinner for us. I maybe expected macaroni and cheese, or if he was especially talented perhaps a roasted chicken. What I did not expect was this:


Roland's "Woo to the Max" Meal

Roland had gone out to Central Market (like Whole Foods, but local & better) and purchased Patagonian Toothfish, baby potatoes, and fresh asparagus. He then poached said toothfish and crafted a special lemon-butter-caper sauce that to this day is the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. To top it off, he had the bottle of wine that was the key in turning me into the wino that I am today. [Confession: Patagonian Toothfish is not as scary and exotic as it sounds. It's actually just the less marketable moniker for this guy]

After the most wonderful dinner ever, I gave Roland a special musical card* I'd hunted down (he had been humming a particular song for the past week, and I'd finally found a card that played it), and he serenaded me with a song he'd been practicing on his guitar. He then told me that he was "madly in like" with me. Needless to say, "Operation Woo" was a smashing success. I was hopelessly smitten.


Valentine's Day 2009 - first picture of Kate and Roland

Happy Valentine's Day to my Love - I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be able to call you my husband!

*The musical card didn't fare so well. When I came back to his apartment later in the week, Roland had carefully taken it apart into dozens of tiny pieces so he could figure out exactly how it worked. Of course, all I saw was a torn up Valentine's Day card strewn across the table. It was only when he started to explain the wiring, amplifiers, etc. to me that I realized I was dating an electrical engineer, after all, and I probably shouldn't take it too personally.