No cooking last night. We saw Babel last night in our effort to see all the Oscar nominees before the awards. We had two bags of movie popcorn (free refills on the large!!) for our dinner.

I also talked to my friend Rocco last night, who was just putting away the ingredients for the Valentine dinner he’s making for his sweetie. I’m afraid forty-one years of East Tennessee-trained cooking simply cannot compete with forty-five-ish years of New York Italian cooking. (Rocco got his first promotion from AARP and was feeling sensitive about his age.) He even knew what calabasa was.

Rocco’s sweetie is getting tapas that include beet and blood orange salad and some kind of hazelnut/orange vinaigrette. Rocco doesn’t use recipes either. I can’t remember the rest but it was all glamorous and yummy. Fred is getting a pound cake and some as-yet-undetermined meat.

Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.