Crazy Crap Item #162: The part where we are not haters

Unlike many of our acquaintance, we are not Valentine's Day haters. Yes, I know, it's a "Hallmark holiday." Yes, I'm being ordered to love.

But the thing is, I already do love, so why not take a moment and wallow in it? Eamon and I are of one mind on this matter.

So last night, we did up VD, Daly style. And it was quite nice.

I'll start with this amusing anecdote about the gifts. Anyone who's been in a relationship beyond the courtship phase knows: the gift-giving grind can begin to get relentless . And VD -- well, it's a toughie. I honestly can't imagine expecting -- or giving -- some expensive jewelry/watch/small island sort of extravaganza. After all, VD should be about small tokens, correct? But how many pewter handheld hearts and small stuffed bears wearing bulky red knit sweaters does one really need?

So it was with a deal of puzzlement that I launched into this year's VD gift hunt. Which means, basically, doing Google searches on innumerable combinations of search terms.

To whit:

+"Valentine's Day" +male +steak

+Gift +Man +love

+Valentine's +present +geek

+"roller derby" +"comic book" +love

Despite this rather scattershot methodology, I very quickly located the perfect gift. It had hearts. It was wearable. It was geeky. It was: the 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt.

The gag is this: you each wear matching shirts, emblazoned with five hearts. When you near each other, the hearts begin to light up. When you diverge they darken.

It's simple. It's brilliant. It's ... expensive. Just a little too, rather, for a gag gift. I hem. I haw. I look for cheap knock-offs. I almost place an order.

Then I recall an innocent question I was asked just one week earlier.

"What's your tshirt size?"

Knowing that Eamon had already filled our light-up-my-lover-is-near shirt needs, I retreated to the perfect present-giving fallback position: liquor. A nice bottle of black Sambuca for my sweetie, accompanied by 5 black licorice pipes.

Presents in hand, we plan the rest of our evening. No crowded "romantic" restaurants for us. I head to Paulina Meat Market, and drop a comically exobitant amount of money on two ribeye steaks (for us and what army, I'd like to know), and a pound of shrimp.

We then execute a nearly perfect meal -- Eamon manning the cast iron skillet for the steaks (cooked to perfection), me succeeding in locating and excecuting a truly easy and wonderful recipe for shrimp scampi. (Seriously. Try it. It's amazing and so easy).

For afters, Eamon suggested -- surprise, surprise -- that we make truffles. The New York Times says they're easy, he reports.

This is stunning to me. Eamon doesn't particularly like truffles. But I do not look a truffle horse in the mouth, so I happily comply.

So, with NY Times recipe in hand, we embark. We each get half a batch, ours to flavor as we please. Me, I'm pretty tame. Cayenne/vanilla, rolled in sugar cinnamon for one batch; cardamom rolled in cocoa for the other.

Eamon is like a crazy man: He spikes one half with Couvoisier, and with a fire of inspiration in his eyes, adds liberal dashes of ... bacon salt. Stepping back from the brink of madness, he leaves his other batch plain, and rolls them in finely chopped walnuts.

We are delighted to find that our handiwork is surprisingly tasty. And so easy.

Eamon marvels. "I wish I'd know how easy these were to make. If I'd known about these in college, I would've gotten 40% more tail, guaranteed."