Ken bought me a gift for Valentines Day–a cast iron fry pan, which I had been wanting for a while. My gift to him was dinner.
We went together to the farmer’s market, seafood shop and wine store. It was nice to have company on my morning errands. It worked because I skipped Pilates (very bad girl!) and waited for Ken to be ready to go.
I got shrimp and scallops at Southern Seafoods–no surprise there because I had it in my mind to do a seafood risotto. They also had mesh bags of fresh mussels from Prince Edward Island so I got one of those. I cooked them up, very traditionally, in white wine and garlic. They were absolutely fantastic! I also made some focaccia but it didn’t really work well as a substitute for “crusty French bread”.

We got a bottle of Venica, Jessera, Pinot Grigio. It was perfect with the meal, having a just right acid balance and enough citrusy notes to compliment the seafood.
For the seafood risotto, I used canaroli rice, onions, wine, saffron and a fair amount of butter. I topped the risotto with some chopped fresh arugala from the garden.
That experiment worked well.

The best was Ken cleaning up (he always does)! What a man!

We spent the rest of the night in bed–watching a really dumb movie (Fool’s Gold) and eating dessert. It was really a terrific Valentines Day