"valentinesday" news and stories

A few of the best Valentine's Day links on the Web this week:

• For the traditionalists, you'll heart this full-on Valentine's Day menu to make at home.
• And for the calorie counters, there's this more restrained menu to try.
• Even chefs have to impress their sweethearts with something to eat -- oysters and champagne, anyone?
• Anything-but-boring restaurant ideas for your romantic evening.
• Valentine's restaurant reservation scalpers caught red handed.

Valentine's Day is the perfect opportunity to surprise your mate with tempting treats. Just because you want to spoil him or her with something delicious, doesn't mean you have to spoil their New Year's resolution.

Rich, bittersweet chocolate paired with fruit can be just the right indulgence at the end of a festive meal. And nothing warms up the house more than the scent of molten chocolate.

See the recipe for these decadent berries after the jump.

• This Valentine's Day, instead of the same old box of chocolates, consider crack -- Crack Pie, that is.
• Or, in honor of Chinese New Year, use these DIY instructions to make dumplings for your dumpling.
• Il Dolce in Costa Mesa isn't just a pizza joint -- but it's the main reason you'll want to go. And you will want to go.
• At Hayat's Kitchen in North Hollywood, the garlic fries are so intense, "you might be able to use [them] to revive the recently deceased." Enough said!
• The trend in planting tea gardens gives new meaning to "growing your own."

While spending Valentine's Day with your sweetheart, odds are pretty good you'll be opening up a bottle of bubbly to celebrate that through the craziness called dating you've found each other. Finding someone trustful and loving that make you laugh is no easy task, that we know. Can't the same be said for scoring the perfect bottle of wine?

Here are three sparkling wines that, when poured into the glass, produce a beautiful pink color and come pretty darn close to being perfect. What would go well with these wines? The good news is that there are not a lot of foods that won't. Sparkling wines are very food-friendly, whether that means pairing with a slice of cheesecake at the end of a meal or cradling a flute in one hand while eating spiced nuts with the other.

After the jump, our three favorite pink sparklers...

I'm still having a blast with Crosby Gaige's "Cocktail Guide and Ladies Companion." Now that I'm all in love and treated like a queen by a most amazing man, my single girlfriends won't let me gripe about anything. No matter what I say, I hear, "Well, at least you've got a great guy." This is usually followed by how they wish they could find one. In essence, their hearts are weary from men who "love 'em and leave 'em."

With Valentine's Day around the corner, I figured I wouldn't get too sappy with cocktails topped with rose petals and Champagne; Gaige's Lovum and Leavum cocktail can be found on page 93 in the chapter "The Old Gin Mill." This chapter also includes classics such as the Pegu Club cocktail made with lime juice, gin, curaçao, orange and Angostura bitters that Ms. Audrey Saunders and company named their bar after.