Valentine's Day!

Maggie, Molly, and I have started a new family dinner tradition. We call them “Sexy Dinners” and they are just that. We turn off all the lights in our tiny apartment and light candles throughout the kitchen. Thank God we don’t have a fourth roommate because she would be extremely freaked out by how happy these Sexy Dinners make us.

When is a Sexy Dinner any more appropriate than on Valentine’s Days? How about never! We carefully planned the menu, picking only the yummiest recipes. Maggie and Molly have been Valentines for years. Sadly my steady Valentine, Allison, is in Ohio… I needed to act quickly because I didn’t want to be their third wheel.

I invited our friend Amanda over to be my date. You know you have found the right friend when she is not sketched out by an invitation to a Sexy Dinner on Valentine’s Day with three female roommates. Plus, I had no doubts she would be a fabulous Valentine after we shared a ½ meter long sausage in Switzerland. My kind of woman.

We started the meal off with a strawberry, cucumber, feta, and spinach salad in a sweet balsamic vinaigrette. This dressing (oil, vinegar, and sugar) is so simple, but so fabulous! We loved it! In fact, we are going to make it a regular on the dinner menu.

Second, Maggie made baked asparagus while I made a creamy, tomato pasta dish baked with Parmesan cheese and the cutest little curly pasta noodles. Because we can’t read any Italian labels, we have started buying our pasta based solely on their shape. So far we have picked bow ties for when we feel fancy, curly pasta because it is just adorable, and little nugget-y things because they look like maggots. Maggie and Molly weren’t as enthused about the last one as I was.

For dessert, we had strawberries covered in a chocolate sauce made from Nutella and warm milk… and of course, CHAMPAGNE! Side note, February 5 was National Nutella Day. I can’t believe I didn’t celebrate properly.

After dinner, and what felt like a thousand dishes, we went out to celebrate one of our closest friend’s 21st birthday. Maggie and I have known Sean forever. He was to blame there when I broke my wrist in grade school. Sean and his eleven roommates live in “The Florence Frathouse”, two apartments connected by a front hallway. The place is a joke. They have huge windows filled with amazing views of the city, multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, and a kitchen that puts ours to shame.

We met up with everyone at Red Garter.

Spoiler Alert: there was karaoke. A lot of karaoke.

I won’t go into details about my many performances, but lets just say I rocked it. Actually, we all rocked it. That was one of the most fun nights I have had here in Florence. The highlight might have been Sean singing “Born in the USA” followed up by his extremely patriotic birthday speech.

The best part? I have it all on video...