A Feast of Love

Our hearts are large. Soul mates and kindred spirits of all kinds enter our lives every day, and the day to celebrate them is coming soon: Valentine’s Day. Even if we don’t have a significant other, we’re all lovers in some way--of our friends, children, or family. This year on Valentine’s Day, honor the many lights that illuminate your life with a Feast of Love. 

Here are a few ideas to help you plan a celebratory meal overflowing with love.

-Find every dish, piece of flatware, candleholder, vase, napkin, and tablecloth in your house that’s pink, red, purple, or white. Create your tablescape from these assembled items. If you come up short, keep the color scheme in mind and poke around the house for vintage figurines, toys, objets d’art, and other unexpected items to help you fill out the aesthetic.

-Buy pink, purple, red, and white construction paper. Cut out hearts of all different sizes and scatter them down the center of the table. This effect looks especially striking against a clean, white tablecloth.

-Set a construction paper heart at each place setting. On each heart, write something that person brings to the table—something you love about him or her. It could be something like “You do pitch perfect impersonations,” or “Martha Stewart has nothing on you; you make the best upside down pineapple cake known to man,” or "When you’re around, everybody laughs themselves silly.” If you want, you can even make it a game—leave the name off the placecard and have each guest guess which card is meant for him or her.

-Pick a meal theme. Foods you loved as a child. Foods from famous love stories. Foods with love-related names. Or, maybe just make some food that everybody loves.

-Make sugar cookies for dessert (see recipe below). Instead of using Valentine’s Day-themed cookie cutters, find alphabet cookie cutters. Typically your local kitchen store is a good place to start. If not, try Sur La Table, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, or Fish’s Eddy if you’re in Manhattan. Cut out cookies in the shape of the initials of each guest, plate the cookies and serve with a scoop or two of delicious ice cream. Or, spell out a message of love in cookies on the cleared table or a banquet after the meal is over.

Valentine’s Day is a wonderful opportunity to spread love far and wide. Create a space for friends and family to share love on a grander scale than lover to lover. After all, there’s no such thing as too much love.  

Rosanna’s Sugar Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup of sugar

2 tablespoons vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

1 egg

red, pink, or purple sprinkles and silver or gold dragee balls optional

Instructions

1. Sift dry ingredients together.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and add the sugar.

3. Add the egg and vanilla to the creamed butter and sugar. Beat well.

4. Add the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until well balanced.

5. Wrap the dough in cloth, pastry paper or aluminum foil. Chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.

6. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

7. Grease one or two baking sheets and set aside.

8. Roll out 1/3 of the dough and cut with cookie cutters into desired shapes and letters.

9. Optional: Sprinkle the cut out cookies with of colored sugar crystals or decorate with candies.

10. Place cookies on baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Watch to make sure they don’t brown!

11. Remove the cookies from oven. Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove cookies from sheets with a wide spatula leave to cool on cookie racks.

   

www.rosannainc.com

Happy Family, Happy People

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ideas. And sometimes, for some reason, these simple ideas don't occur to us, like taking a walk after dinner, putting fresh flowers on the table, spending an hour in the park, checking out a book from the library, or playing a game.

Rather than watch a movie after dinner, or go off to our separate activities, our family has started playing games. Our favorite game is nothing fancy, but it’s an absolute blast and a big hit every time we play. It’s called Happy Family. Fitting name, don’t you think? Here are the rules:

Give everyone at the table a pen and some scraps of paper. Place a bowl in the middle to collect answers. Also select a reader, but we’ll get to later.

Have everyone write down the name of a well-known person on a piece the scrap paper. The person could be anyone—a celebrity, a historical figure, a fictional character, a politician, an artist, an athlete, or even someone well-known only to the players, like a family pet.

Once everyone has anonymously placed his or her slip of paper in the bowl, the reader reads out the list of names through twice. Now here’s the tricky part: you have to try to guess the author behind each submission, but have to remember all of the names without writing anything down!

After the reader has finished, go around the circle and take turns guessing. Let’s say Sally, Sylvia, Mitch, and Alfie are playing Happy Family and the characters for the round are Marie Antoinette, Michael Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Mickey Mouse. Sally starts and asks, “Mitch, are you Mickey Mouse?” If she’s right, then Sally and Mitch become a Happy Family. Sally then tells Mitch whom she wrote down, and they get to guess again together as a family. The goal is to accrue as many family members as you can, and NOT to forget any of the submissions! Because even if you’re part of the biggest family but no one can remember the name of the remaining character, all of you lose that last unknown person wins!

Play as many rounds as you like. 

Because of all the whispering and close contact Happy Family calls for, everyone invariably ends up giggly and excited. It’s a perfect way to end a dinner party or get everyone feeling close at an extended family gathering. Here's a hint: the more players, the happier the family.

www.rosannainc.com

*photo of The Father Knows Best cast courtesy of Chronically Vintage