"couples" news and stories

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and for lots of couples that means a dinner and wine at a fancy restaurant. But for couples who work together in restaurants, it's not always so romantic . . . it's more like being Santa on Christmas Eve, working hard to make your evening special.

So how do these culinary couples keep the romance alive? What's it like working together in an environment that's notorious for cantankerous chefs, attitude and high-pressure situations? Do they ever want to kill each other? We spoke to five kitchen couples to find out.

Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman own Five Points, Hundred Acres and Cookshop restaurants in New York City. Marc is the executive chef and Vicki runs the front of the house. They've been married 11 years ("too long" according to Marc) and have two boys.

Is it hard to separate your personal life from your professional life?
M: There is no such thing, no separation. How could it be otherwise? Who can compartmentalize that kind of thing anyway?
V: It's all mixed together.

The Boston Globe has a new interactive feature at their site, where they take a look inside the refrigerators of several local residents. They take a look into the fridges of college students, couples, and couples with several kids. There's also a fridge used by three adults that live together.

I think this is a great idea, though I don't think the Globe went far enough with it (and the fridge used by the single person isn't used by a single person at all, it's used by roommates). But the feature just seems to be a shot of the fridge, then buttons you roll over to see certain items. So we see beer and fat free cheese and meals, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to get out of it besides that, and it gets kinda boring.

Though I gotta say I really want that giant fridge owned by the family in Waban. Mine is 15 years old and falling apart. If you're wondering what's in mine, it's mostly Diet Coke, Perdue chicken, and Dove dark chocolate.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, my least favorite holiday (if you can call a day created by greeting card companies a "holiday"). And it's not just because I don't have a honey to share it with. I've always hated it.

But I do know that you're supposed to take a bath or a shower that day. Well, you should take a bath or shower every day, but on Valentine's Day in particular you don't want to smell. Don't take an ordinary bath though, take a chocolate bath. A hot springs spa/resort in Japan offers such a bath. The water in the tub is mixed with cacao and fragrance, then liquid chocolate is poured over the people in the tub.

But I'm confused by the picture. If this is for Valentine's Day, I assume it's for couples. What's with all the people in the tub? Is this the family version?

Related:

Yunessun Spa for food lovers

With only a few days left until Valentine's, we thought that it would be fun to take a look at the role that food can play in our relationships with a little mini series leading into February 14th.

There are lots of reasons why couples break up and chances are that they don't always have to do with food (unless you changed your eating habits to impress someone with really restrictive diet and it just didn't work out), but it's not entirely uncommon for the relationship to - literally - end over food because some people like the restaurant breakup.

The restaurant breakup is just what it sounds like: a breakup in a restaurant. The reason that some people like to end their involvement over dinner is that they're hoping to avoid a scene, trying to use the food as a distraction and the other diners as a way to keep the fuss to a minimum. As long as they're picking up the tab, some of those doing the breaking up feel somewhat absolved of guilt - after all, s/he got a free meal!

In the movies, there is always one breakup restaurant, usually a quiet and dimly lit Italian place with women sobbing quietly into their risottos. Have you ever ended up in one of these restaurants, either as a party to the breakup or simply as a bystander? Would you break up in a restaurant?

What on Earth would make Rocco DiSpirito want to do another TV reality show?  Didn't he learn his lesson from doing that utter disaster of a reality show, The Restaurant, where he was made to look petty and conniving? From all accounts that I've heard (I've never eaten in any of his restaurants), DiSpirito is a great chef, so why is he getting so far away from that and doing another reality show? Granted, this one sounds a little less cheesy and fake than the NBC show (seems to be centered more about a person's special relationship with food in their lives), but this just seems to be the wrong direction to  go in.

Of course, I'm one to talk. If a TV show called me up and asked me to be on a TV show where they covered me in cream cheese and tied me to a chair in the living room of the latest Real World house for a lot of money, I'd be there in a second.