As Nigel Slater says, “St. Valentine’s is rather like Christmas, in that if you ignore it, you always end up regretting it, feeling mean and cynical. Yes, it is more than a bit cheesy, but I think we have to go with it.”

And go with it we shall, Nigel. In years past, I have never been bothered by being single on Valentine’s Day nearly as much as I was bothered by being single on New Years Eve, but I obviously didn’t do much in the way of celebration. And when I wasn’t alone I still didn’t really make a fuss about the holiday, due to the nagging fear that the partner of the moment would get scared off. (Which I guess they did anyway. No great loss.)

But now, I have a honey who seems like he will stick around in spite of my many moments, and I couldn’t be happier that his idea of celebrating nearly everything is just like mine: seafood. (And champagne, of course; any excuse for that.) Happy St. Valentine’s, my seafood-eating, blog-commenting, public-declaration-of-sentiment-inducing, continually-patient, dear.