The Valentines Day - Plan B Surprise

I said that my next post was going to be about my 4-year old but my procrastination and an untimely (even though it shows up at the same time each year) holiday showed up so I will make an executive decision and flip the script.

I know that most bloggers are going to write something beautiful for Valentines Day.  They are going to talk about how wonderful Valentines Day is going to be.  You are going to read stories about flowers.  You are going to read stories about the date nights.  You might even read a story or two about diamonds (whatever those things are).  Though all of these are great ideas smothered in tradition... sometimes the best ideas should just stay... ideas.

A few years ago I was one of the romantics (my wife might disagree (change the word might to "will")).  OK... I was just a little more romantic than I am now (how does that sound, honey?).  A friend and I would get together and plan something for our beautiful ladies.  A few of those plans included spa treatments, flowers, limos, etc (no diamonds though - moneybags I am not (and neither is he)).  But that year's plan included dinner.  And not just any dinner.  Dinner cooked by the world renowned chef... me (oh and my friend too).

This shouldn't be a problem.  I'm a good cook (my wife will interject here again).  I don't choose to cook a lot but when I do, it usually turns out well.  I'm good at following directions (wife again) and I'm not afraid to go off the beaten path if necessary.  My mom also taught me to cook the things I like well and improvise on the rest.  I think she did that because she didn't think I was ever going to get married and she was preparing her only child for a life of more than McDonald's and Microwaveable Meals (though I still like both).

So, what was on the menu that evening?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  It was a Chicken and Pasta dish and for dessert... Strawberry Shortcake.   The Chicken and Pasta dish wasn't a problem because I'm pretty good with the Angel Hair and the Poultry (bu-GARK! (that was a very poor chicken sound.  But it is text.  What can I do? You should read my Walrus sound.).  But I had to get a recipe for the Strawberry Shortcake.  I hadn't made one of those before.  So I searched for a nice recipe in the biggest recipe book in the world... the internet.

This couldn't be just any recipe, though.  It had to be one that that is a little challenging because the easy recipes just suck!  But it also had the be easy enough for 2 kitchen novices to do without having to looking up words because we don't know what Drizzling, Folding In and Fluting (really didn't know what this one was... still don't) are.  So we picked one that was in the middle of the extremes.  This very logical approach proved to be our undoing.

I want to preface this next paragraph by saying that the Chicken (bu-GARK!) and Pasta was AMAZING!  We did such a wonderful job that we were asked to cook this dish for the Vatican (Is it wrong to lie and use the Vatican for said lie?  I guess we will see.).  But either way, the C and P dish was good.  No complaints there.  But the dessert...

We knew 5 minutes in that the shortcake recipe had some problems.  We followed the recipe to the T.  We even made more than one batch because the first one looked a little odd.  They both looked the same!  They really should have put this recipe under the section of "Men Who Want to Cook for Their Wives With the Intent of Serving Divorce Papers at the End of the Meal.  The shortcakes were terrible.  More than that, they were ugly.  They were week 1 - 4 of American Idol.  They were the Weakest Link (goodbye).  They were literally the Biggest Loser.  After we were done cooking those, we voted ourselves off the island.

I know they say it's the thought that counts.  Well... THEY lied!  We couldn't bring ourselves to serve that to our significant others.  Unless you count the THOUGHT to not serve these, the thought counted for nothing.  So in this case, it was better for us to go to plan B first.  So we went to the store and bought generic shortcakes.  Some may say that we admitted defeat... They would be correct.  But my argument to them is that in the end... We sacrificed the battle to win the war.  We married those significant others and have not regretted the decision to abort the original mission.  If we had chosen plan A... Well... It's possible that we would have been the first 2 couples in history to get a divorce before we ever got married.  And the judge would have awarded them half regardless.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is but I wanted to fit it in for this Holiday season.  So fellas... when you are choosing your great MAC plans to impress, just remember it's not the shards but the cards that counts.  And everyone can't be the A-Team so make sure you have a plan B for those special occasions.

Single, married or otherwise I hope you have a great Valentines day.  But if you didn't/don't let me know.  I would love to hear about that too.  And in the next year or two, I might get with my friend and see what we can do to erase the Strawberry Shortcake memory.