"hearts" news and stories

Get ready, y'all. Valentine's Day is just over two weeks away, and though the holiday is probably my least favorite "holiday" of the year, I can't help but pay it much attention because 1) hearts are my favorite shape, and 2) pink is my favorite color. Trust me, if I had my say with the Universal Holiday Design Council, I'd make Thanksgiving pink and serve everything from heart-shaped casserole dishes.

But I will take great advantage of Valentine's Day until the rest of the world changes and swoon over things like these heart-shaped salt and pepper shakers. Yes, they are being marketed as wedding favors, but I can ignore that for now. The shakers stand 3¾" tall, are shiny chrome, and are $4.99 from Bliss Wedding Markets. If you are planning a romantic dinner in, these would be darling on the table, but I'd plan to use them every day.

More salt and pepper:
Talk to taste
Silvery sleek
Ice cream cones
Sleek and magnetic
Pretty little pigs
Self-shaking shakers for the lazy
Peugeot's electric pepper mill
Weeble wobble
Cha Cha Cha
Teardrops
Loops

Having enjoyed an offal salad at the Anchor and Hope with a bunch of the UK's bloggers, I can attest to being a lover of offal. Gimme kidneys, liver or heart any day. Pig's trotters I am not that much of a fan of; and there is something about brains that I really don't want to go into that takes them off the menu too.

Pluck is the lungs, heart and liver of an animal that is most famously used in the creation of the Scottish delicacy haggis - stuffed with oat bran inside a sheep's stomach. Lights are the animals lungs; again there is something about them that puts me off. They can be used though as an addition to several dishes, finely chopped in a bolognese sauce for example. To prepare them they have to be beaten by a mallet to remove the air and the cartilage and a broccoli looking bit sticking out of the windpipe have to be removed too.

Here's a little update for those of you wondering about the results of the the GoldenPalace.net Valentine's Day Chocolate Massacre, mentioned yesterday. Hometown boy Patrick Bertoletti took first place by eating almost two pounds of chocolate hearts in seven minutes. The 20-year-old Bertoletti made news in the competitive eating arena last month when he bested competitive eating champs Sonya Thomas and Joey Chestnut at a corned beef sandwich eating competition in Arkansas. Bertoletti took home $2,500 for yesterday's win.

A post-win interview with Bertoletti is available on Digest.

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We love those conversation hearts from Necco (and, what the heck, the knockoffs too, whether they be bitter or sweet or plain obnoxious). When I was a little girl whose head was filled with images of princess hats, men on white horses, and endless gifts of Whitman's Samplers and sugary candy and roses for Valentine's Day, I imagined the time when my sweetheart would express his love with those sweet, sweet hearts.

But it's never really happened as in my dream. When my husband proposed? It wasn't by handing me a candy heart imprinted in pink smudged block letters with "MARRY ME."

Has that ever happened, to you or someone you know? Please do share.

[Photo Sarah Gilbert]

I've just discovered fd's flickr tools (you should, too) and I keep coming across great examples of their use. Like this great photo of a heart-shaped string of hot chile peppers created and uploaded by Gill Seyfang. And perfect for Valentine's Day! Now, what to do with all my conversation heart photos... surely I can come up with something clever. Got any suggestions for a good slogan?

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