Valentine’s Day, in case you haven’t glanced at your calendar, is this coming Tuesday. It is your once-a-year (twice-a-year if you include anniversaries) chance to let that someone special in your life know that you care.
But how caring are you, really, if you rehearse the same worn-out routine year after year? Flowers? Candy? A candlelit dinner? Done … to death, that is. This year, why not shake things up? Let me count the ways.
Give a cocoa-roach. Instead of naming a star after the love of your life, consider naming a Madagascar hissing cockroach after him or her. The Bronx Zoo has 58,000 of the critters for you to choose from. But don’t stop there. For an additional $15, you can give your sweet a sweet—to wit, a hand-painted, artisanal chocolate cockroach. The chocolate delicacies (which, fear not, are bug-free solid chocolate) are hand-made, too—by New York chocolatier Sabrina Berkowitz, of The Chocolate Box NYC, through special arrangement with the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Share a bull’s testicle pie. Don’t give me that look! Pie maker Charlie Bigham’s “Cock and Bull” pie, made with honest-to-goodness bull’s balls, are so “packed full of sexually stimulating ingredients [that] it should come with a health warning,” Bingham advises. The pies come two to a box and are available for mail order from Ocado, an online supermarket that operates out of the UK. The limited edition pie goes for £7.99 ($12.58). You probably won’t have the goods in time for Valentine’s Day, but maybe as a placeholder gift you could…
Tour the sewer. What could be more romantic than traipsing through waste—or at least through a wastewater treatment plant?The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is offering a Valentine’s morning tour of the Newtown Creek Wastewater facility, described by plant superintendent Jim Pynn as a “unique date, and one they’ll never forget.” Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. This is a food column, so where’s the food angle? Says Pynn, “Whoever shows up is welcome to a Hershey kiss.” So there!
Buy a copy of The Cookie Sutra. Available through Mortimer Snodgrass at $10.95, Edward Jaye’s The Cookie Sutra is a collection of photographs of a gingerbread couple showing what they’re made of—and I don’t mean sugar and spice. The publisher calls the book a union between the Kama Sutra and the Joy of Cooking.
Treat him/her to an evening out solo. If you’re really open-minded, think of Stag Night at Havana Central as a prelude to Valentine’s Day. The event is scheduled for Monday, February 13, the night before V.D. (on second thought, maybe I should have spelled that out). Participants will receive a Rum flight (Matusalem Classico, 10 Cane, and Bacardi Oakheart), unlimited empanadas, and a hand-rolled cigar. The cost is $25. Just two words of advice: Don’t come home empty-handed but do come home alone. Havana Central has two locations:51 West 46th Street, bet Sixth and Seventh Aves, 212-398-7440; 2911 Broadway, bet 113th and 114th Sts, 212-662-8830.
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