February 14th : Cream filled chocolate day

Because what else would it be, right? Rather than just "chocolate day" or "flourless chocolate cake day" (which all exist, BTW) Valentine's Day is National Cream Filled Chocolate Day. Today is Easter for adults who delight in cellophane and junk candy but are too old for Easter baskets.


The charms of the heart-shaped box are many, but high quality chocolate is not among them. Somehow the heart-shaped boxes I remember from my youth were much more elaborate than what you can get nowadays. The denim heart-shaped box notwithstanding, I remember my very popular aunt's closet teeming with hearts adorned with lace, poufs and glitter. In my eight year old mind this was the height of displays of affection. It certainly was up there with whatever Beau would say to She-Ra once she got his heart pumping.

I bought the above heart for myself to ensure this day was celebrated properly and because I know from experience my Valentine doesn't deal in the silliness of the drugstore candy box. Buying it for myself also ensure me the awkwardness of unwrapping it in my office, hoping I wouldn't have to lie and say it was from Andrew if caught. Bonus: Not sharing allowed me to bust up the chocolates in such a rude, crude manner. From clockwise, we have coconut, caramel, vanilla cream, chocolate cream x2 (lame) then finally solid milk chocolate (cop out). I tried both the chocolate cream filled and the coconut filled and was pleasantly surprised by how palatable they actually were. Plus I have these smooshed remnants to nosh on for the rest of the week should I chose to go the Liz Lemon approved route and keep them stashed rather than toss them.

In terms of execution, I think I've finally done OK with a National Food Holiday. Probably because it didn't require me to cook and hold a camera at the same time. My betrothed wants to hook up cameras all over the house, ostensibly to "watch birds" but maybe we can merge his desire to record with my desire to be like Ina Garten and recreate the Barefoot Contessa kitchen. It's still Valentine's Day and I've yet to receive a present, so I guess we shall see...