My Greasy Valentine

Valentine’s Day has gotten out of control. It is no longer a day to tell the people you love how you feel about them. It’s a day to drop a wad of cash on a grand gesture to show them how you feel about them. Clearly, the less you spend on your valentine, the less you love them. That is the message advertisers are sending. The cost of anything remotely romantic becomes unreasonably expensive.  With traditional gifts like flowers or jewelry, you may want to offer your heart, but it will cost an arm and a leg to do so.

Candy is a perennial Valentine’s Day treat. The wonderful thing about giving candy is the wide range of price points at which it is available. Just about every type of candy on the market comes festively wrapped in pink or red this time of year. If you are a true romantic and a traditionalist, there is always the heart-shaped box of chocolates you can grab at the drugstore on the way to pick up your date. However, if your valentine has a more discerning palate, you’ll have to spring for the gourmet chocolates.

If your sweetheart has a sweet tooth, but you feel that a box of store-bought confections is just too impersonal there is a solution to that problem. With some creativity and a few clicks of a mouse, you can customize M&Ms for your loved one. You can select the blend of colors and they will print any image or message you can cram onto their crunchy candy coating. Does your valentine prefer those disgustingly chalky conversation hearts? There is a website that will allow you to capture the essence of your relationship and stamp it on those hearts as long as it can be summed up in 2 lines of text with no more than 9 characters per line.  Be sure to proofread. At $45 a pound, you don’t want a spelling mistake to send the wrong message to your beloved.

But what if your Valentine sweetie prefers salty treats? Don’t worry. Your options are more limited, but purveyors of traditionally non-romantic items want a cut of Cupid’s cash flow. If an item can be made into the shape of a heart, it can be a symbol of your undying love. There are now heart-shaped pizzas, donuts and bagels. What could express feelings of love better than heart-shaped dough fried in oil?

With economic times being tough your heart might be bigger than your budget. The most sincere valentines are the ones you make yourself. Gone are the days when we would sit down with red construction paper, glitter, glue and paper doilies to create a homemade valentine, but with some rudimentary culinary skills you can create a unique Valentine’s Day gift that won’t soon be forgotten: a bacon bouquet.

bacon roses…who knew?

Before you scoff at the idea of this greasy valentine consider this; the price of bacon doesn’t skyrocket as February 14^th approaches. A quick trip to the grocery store and some patience in the kitchen is all you’ll need to whip up a truly original gift guaranteed to surprise even the most jaded valentine. Imagine how easy it would be to woo your beloved when they arrive home to a house filled with the intoxicating aroma of bacon. Don’t think bacon is sexy? Just watch this clip from Seinfeld. George Costanza thinks the salted, cured meats are quite the aphrodisiac and he’s not alone.

With a bacon bouquet you’ll certainly capture your valentine’s heart. Let’s just hope all that bacon doesn’t clog up its arteries.

Tempted? Want the recipe for a bacon bouquet? Click here.