Valentime's Day!

Valentime's Day began on Saturday when Rachel baked me this AWESOME cake:

 

It was made with PEANUT BUTTER and had a WHITE CHOCOLATE CREAM CENTER.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.... 

 For my part, I decided to craft another flower for Rachel, this time out of Sculpy Bakeable Clay. I think it turned out pretty well, though I need to work on my wet blending techniques for the paint job on the petals:

  

And yes, there is a second leaf behind the piece of paper.

For dinner we headed out to the Corner Table, which is a great restaurant that we have been meaning to go out to for ages. They use only local ingredients in all of their meals and often host cooking lessons where you cook your own meal and trips to local farms [that are also meals/cooking lessons]. On most Sundays they have a "vino+vinyl" night where you can bring in a vinyl record and a bottle of wine and enjoy your dinner, though on Valentime's Day they simply had pleny of tables and delicious food. Service was excellent- everything came just when we wanted it and not a moment sooner or later, and two entire hours simply flew by as we enjoyed the ambience and our conversation. Highlights of the meal included:

-a "bubbly" ale that tasted like a cross between champagne and a belgian ale

-roasted pumpkin ravioli

-squid ink spaghetti:

-braised pork belly with red cabbage, golden turnips, cream and onions:

 

-trout served with micro greens and toasted bread:

 

-cinnamon panna cotta with honey creme and strawberries on top

-and finally, rice pudding with apple extract and diced pieces of apple on top.

DELICIOUS. I highly encourage you to check it out if you have a bit of cash to spend on a quality meal and happen to be in Minneapolis.

We finished up the night by watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie that I have always meant to see but never did. It's about a couple that decide to wipe their minds of each other because of problems in their relationship, and their fight to stop the process once it starts. Most of the action takes place inside Joel's (the character played by Jim Carrey) head, so it's incredibly trippy as he attempts to hide his memories of Clementine (the character played by Kate Winslet) in deep, ingrained parts of his mind so that they will not disapear. Excellent movie from both a scripting and technical execution point of view; it was incredibly immersive, very weird and altogether enjoyable. I especially liked the fact that they used nonstandard film to shoot the movie (kodachrome I believe, but I could be very much mistaken). And it all takes place on Valentime's day, so that made it even more perfect.

Until next time...

"Buffalo, Feb. 14. Dear Sir: I am only too proud of the chance to help with this the only Valentine I venture to write this day -- for although I am twain in my own person I am only half a person in my matrimonial form, and sometimes my wife shows that she is so much better and nobler than I am, that I seriously question if I am really any more than about a quarter! "
- Letter to an unidentified correspondent from Mark Twain, featured on an internet auction by Bennett Stamps, Baltimore, Maryland, March 2006