For amateur cooks with significant others, Valentine's day is not so much an occasion as it is a dare. Around the city, restaurants are offering over-priced menus full of precious - often heart-shaped - morsels to con love-struck men into picking up a padded check. Last year, bound by the constraints of my government wages, I decided to take the dare. I resolved to make a Valentine's Day dinner for two right in my own kitchen.

I had a lot more free time back then. So naturally, I spent two days preparing a four-course dinner.

Lisa has been steadily broadening her gastronomic horizons since we started dating. Valentine's day seemed to me to be the perfect opportunity to introduce her to a staple of culinary seduction: raw oysters on the half shell. I happen to have an oyster knife and a kevlar glove in my kitchen, but if you don't you'd probably be wise to skip this course. Oysters are a bitch to open.

On the advice of a female friend (who has seldom steered me wrong), the next course was heart-shaped ravioli. I know, it's as sappy as you can get, but you won''t believe how much it can impress a woman when you not only prepare her a winning meal, but sublimate your masculine revulsion long enough to shape it into cutesy little hearts. The ravioli were filled with lobster meat, mascarpone, and tarragon, and were dressed with a white wine and caramelized shallot beurre blanc. I even tried to dye the pasta dough pink with red bell pepper puree. This is not a good idea -- when boiled, red pepper puree mixed with egg-yolk pasta turns orange.

The red peppers came into play in my next dish as well, this time as a garnish. Here's something that will certainly turn the stomach of any singles out there. Basically, you take strips of red pepper about 1 cm wide, and cut little wedge-shaped cuts into them like this:

Just cut off the pointy top corners, and you've got little red pepper heart garnishes. I used them in a dish I made to suit Lisa's tastes. She loves chicken, she loves cheese, and she loves red sauce. So I took a whole chicken, removed the skin in two pieces before deboning (a complicated process that I may try to explain in a later post), cut away a boneless breast with the first joint of the wing still attached, butterflied it, and stuffed it with artichoke hearts, prosciutto san daniele, and three kinds of cheeses (mozzarella, parmagiano, and pecorino romano). I wrapped each stuffed breast with half the skin of the chicken (both to hold it together and to give it a crispy shell), baked it in the oven, and served it with a tomato-cream sauce (garnished, of course, with the little red-pepper hearts). I did all the prep work the night before, and ate the dark meat for dinner on February 13.

Admittedly, the heart-shaped ravioli were a bit much, but there really is one classic Valentine's Day dessert that you can't just ignore: coeur à la crème. There are special molds made just for this dessert, which is essentially a no-bake, no-crust, no-egg cheesecake that you allow to drain in cheesecloth overnight so it becomes firm. I know Lisa isn't really into cheesecake, but I thought if I dressed it up with a little chocolate and some raspberry sauce she'd like it. After all, it's heart-shaped.

Now I've got two coeur à la crème molds I will never use again.

This year I've had a lot less time to prepare. Lisa has already told me she wants me to make her something like the potato tart with salmon she had at Escoffier. So I'm going to Citarella tonight to pick up some fresh salmon to cure. The only real question is whether it has to be heart-shaped.