Sweets for Your Sweetheart

Candy recipes and other sweet treats for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is quite an event in the South! Heart shaped cookies, petit fours, and cakes and pies with "I Love You" written in icing are filling the aisles at the local grocery stores.

The color, flavor, and smell of food all play an important part in a successful romantic meal. The Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago discovered that kitchen smells, like cinnamon buns, doughnuts, and pumpkin pie, may be more powerful than the finest perfume! Other aromas with positive effects were vanilla, strawberries, lavender, and black licorice.

The authors of "Food As Foreplay" say it all in this excerpt: "...an aphrodisiac isn't something you buy from a gnarled old woman who lives in a tree. It is the resonance, tone, timbre that YOU bring to cooking.

Love radiates from your heart, seeps into the food and gives it the mystical quality that ignites the soul. The real aphrodisiac is you."

Whether you're serving an elegant meal or everyone's favorite spaghetti or pizza (heart-shaped), do it with some candles, good wine or champagne if you like, and a loving smile!

Valentines Day Night

When the day of Valentines comes, it allows you to show your special someone just how much you care about them. The most usual and effective of Valentine's Day gifts to make yourself are portraits of your beloved. This Valentine's Day gift that you can make yourself very popular with your beloved if you do it right.

If you're looking for a way to make Valentines Day extra special, cook a special recipe just for him or her. Even if something screws up, just the atmosphere and the obvious effort you put into it should be enough to charm. If your cooking fails, order a pizza. If you are used to cooking, then the cooking will be the easy part.

It is the atmosphere of the dining room that makes or breaks this Valentine's Day gift you make yourself. You need fancy clothes, soft music (whether classical or Barry White - or classical Barry White), flowers, a nice clean tablecloth, a clean or at least neat dining room and a bottle of champagne or wine if both of you are allowed to drink alcohol.

The effect of this Valentine's Day gift that you make yourself is generally favorable. It says, "I think you are so special that I went out of my mind cleaning and cooking and wearing clean clothes just to make you happy." You want to turn your home into a somewhat starred restaurant with the sole focus being the beloved. Foods known to be aphrodisiacs include asparagus, cucumber, vanilla, oysters and chocolate (not all together, though).

A Day for Lovers

Valentine's Day a holiday honoring love and lovers, is celebrated on February 14th each year. "The traditional day on which lovers in certain cultures let each other know about their love, commonly by sending Valentine's cards, gifts and sweets" is how Wikipedia describes this magical holiday. An estimated one billion Valentine cards are sent each year, according to the History Channel.

Valentine's Day has roots in several different legends that have found their way to us through the ages. In the Poor Robin's Almanac in 1765, a beautiful verse was printed regarding the month of February, "this month bright Phoebus enters Pisces. The maids will have good store of kisses, for always when the fun comes there, Valentine's Day is drawing near. And both the men and maids incline to choose them each a Valentine.

If a man gets one he loves, he gives her a pair of gloves sealing the favor with a kiss." Throughout history, Valentine's Day has been celebrated as the day when the first works in the vineyards and on the fields commence. This much is for sure, as we know it today, it contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition and has now turned into a day of celebrating love all across the world.

Love is the most beautiful and surreal feeling in the world. Valentine's Day is the perfect time to express your heart's desires and feelings to your soul mate. However, Valentine's Day has expanded into showing love for all your loved ones. Family, friends, classmates, and co-workers appreciate a token expressing the love shared with them, just as much as a sweetheart would.

Essentially, it is a time for loving and giving. Valentine's Day gifts can be difficult, but with a little planning and insight into your loved one's preferences, you can find that special someone a memorable, personalized gift this year. Gift your sweetheart something personalized and show that love is not just about the present, but also about the moments you have shared together. Personal Treasures, an on-line store, prides themselves on providing Valentine's Day gifts that touch the heartstrings and relive those unforgettable moments.

Top Ten Things To Do The Day After Valentine's Day

Why should February 14th get all of the attention? Here are some things to do the day after Valentine's Day.

1. Water the flowers you receieved. You know that they will probabbly be dead

tomorrow, but you just have to take care of them.

2. Find somewhere in your room for the bear he bought you even though you already have ninety nine bears and you really do not have any more room for bears.

3. Buy the candy and flowers that Kroger is selling for half off. While you are at it, buy some cards so you will be ready for next year.

4. Buy what you really wanted him to buy you.

5. Cuss your significant other out because he forgot Valentine's Day (just kidding)

6. Go to the bank (for some people it's payday.)

7. Delete all of the Valentine's Day related spam you received.

8. Sell that gift that you did not really want in an online auction.

9. Look for something to sell related to Valentine's Day so you can make some

money next year.

10. Count all of the Valentine's Day cards you received and replace the Christmas cards that were on the mantle with them. (I know some of you still have Christmas cards on your mantle.)