What’s in season?

No fruit is in season all the time, but there is a fruit for every season. Luckily, the fruits that we tend to send as gifts most often come into season in the northern hemisphere’s winter. So, in the middle of a cold January snowstorm, you can enjoy a taste of the tropics. You can find a list of fruits and their seasons at Fruit and Veggies More Matters. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the season you want to look at.

Not only does choosing fruit in season ensure that your recipient gets the freshest, most delicious items, it helps cut the costs. Seasonal fruit is less expensive than forced, hothouse-grown fruits.

Do you want to buy a fruit gift or make your own?

Either can be a great option. Purchasing a premade gift has a few advantages though: they do this for a living! They know when and how to arrange and ship the fruit so it doesn’t arrive spoiled or bruised. They can use specially insulated shipping containers to make sure that freshness is preserved and your recipient gets a beautiful fall gift arrangement. Another option is to choose a fruit delivery service that auto-delivers each month. You can save money, and your fruit will always be fresh and delicious.

What type of arrangement do you want?

Fruit baskets are wonderful, traditional gifts, but you can also branch out and try other options. Edible fresh fruit bouquets, for instance, make stunning birthday gifts and great centerpieces. This would be perfect for a party or for virtually any occasion, from a baby shower to a retirement party. Baskets, platters, boxes, picnic baskets, and bouquets bearing fruit all make terrific gifts.

Do you want anything other than fruit?

Fruit is definitely the star, but many arrangements include other items, such as cheeses, crackers, cookies, tea, wine, chocolates, dried fruits, and nuts. You can build a fruit basket featuring any number of complementary items. This allows you to customize your gift to meet the tastes of the recipient.

What’s your price range?

How much do you want to spend on your gift? Consider both the cost of the fruit gift as well as the cost of shipping. If you can hand-deliver the gift, you may want to assemble your own basket and save money; if you have to send it across the state or across the country, choosing premade can actually be a bit easier on your budget.

You can choose a deluxe, all-inclusive fruit basket with chocolates, nuts, and other goodies, but the cost is driven up by these other gourmet items. You can expect to pay between $120 and $200 for a large gift basket. You can always stay small, though; and this may even be better for some recipients. You don’t want all that fruit to go to waste because they can’t eat it all in time! You can find smaller, though equally beautiful, arrangements for between $35 and $50.

Fruit is a wonderful gift any time of year, but it is particularly welcome when we all need a reminder of warm, sunny locales. In the cold month of February, a valentine gift basket makes the perfect pick me up. You are sure to be appreciated when you give the gift of summer!

The heart-shaped cheesecake appears everywhere come Valentine’s Day. You’ll pay upwards of $50 in some cases for this little dessert. But you can spend just a few dollars at the grocery store for some ingredients and spend the remaining cash on a gift instead.

Kids can help bake the Valentine’s Day cheesecake every year. It can become a new tradition. It’s an easy enough recipe that doesn’t have complicated steps. But, depending on their ages, you may still want to supervise the activity.

Here’s a recipe from bellaonline.com for a delightful heart-shaped cheesecake.

Heart Shaped Cheesecake Recipe (courtesy of bellaonline.com)

Guest Author - Brandii Lacey

This fun Valentine’s Day treat is simple enough for kids of all ages to help prepare. From crushing the graham crackers into tiny crumbs to pouring the warm topping over the finished product, this cheesecake recipe has something for everyone!

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces of cream cheese, softened

• 2 large eggs

• ½ cup of sugar

• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

• Strawberry pie filling

• 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs

• 4 tablespoons of butter

• 1 heart shaped baking pan (if you don’t have this, simply use a regular baking dish and after the cheesecake cools, you can use a heart shaped cookie cutter).

Directions:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Spray the heart shaped baking pan with a non stick cooking spray.

3. Crush the graham cracker crumbs in a sealed plastic bag, and pour into
a bowl.

4. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and add it to the crushed graham cracker crumbs. Mix well.

5. Spread the crumb mixture in the heart shaped pan.

6. In a separate bowl, combine cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

7. Pour cheesecake mixture into the pan and bake for thirty minutes.

8. Heat the pie filling in a small sauce pan.

9. After the cheesecake cools completely, top with strawberry pie filling.

10. Place any leftovers in the refrigerator.

Tips for the recipe:

If you don’t have a heart shaped pan, simply use a regular baking dish. After the cheesecake has cooked, let it cool, and then place in the refrigerator for an hour or two. Use a heart shaped cookie cutter to make individual heart shaped cheesecakes. You can also use the end of a spoon to carve your own heart shapes.

This recipe can easily be adapted to a finger friendly treat! Instead of pouring the graham cracker crumb mixture into the heart shaped pan, spread a little bit of the mixture into a mini muffin pan. Divide the cheesecake mixture into each of the muffin sections, and bake for twenty five minutes, or until cooked through. Let cool completely, and then store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

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For heart-shaped cookies, you can take the easy way and use store bought sugar cookie dough. Roll out the dough and cut with heart-shaped cookie cutters. Decorate with a simple royal icing frosting or your favorite store bought flavor and sprinkle with red dusting sugar.

Fortunately, these films have been preserved and are available on DVD and accessible. Some of these films are such genius that it would be a crime to lose the last copy of them. Enjoy a night filled with intrigue, romance, double entendres, scoundrels, and beautiful ladies. Go back to a time when men were men and women were women. A time when decorum ruled and elegance was expected.

Romeo and Juliet

When Harry Met Sally

Love Story

Annie Hall

Vertigo

Camille

The King and I

The African Queen

It’s a Wonderful Life

Wuthering Heights

Beauty and the Beast

It Happened One Night

An American in Paris

West Side Story

Roman Holiday

The Way We Were

The Shop Around the Corner

On Golden Pond

Now, Voyager

Pillow Talk

Dirty Dancing

Bridges of Madison County

Notorious

Morocco

The Goodbye Girl

Bonnie and Clyde

A Streetcar Named Desire

The Apartment

Reds

A Place in the Sun

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Jezebel

Woman of the Year

Way Down East

Jerry Maguire

Double Indemnity

While You Were Sleeping

Before Sunrise

Say Anything

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

An Officer and a Gentleman

Ghost

Casablanca

Only You

Pretty Woman

Serendipity

Sabrina

The Notebook

Titanic

Gone with the Wind

Doctor Zhivago

The English Patient

An Affair to Remember

My Fair Lady

The Princess Bride

Love, Actually

500 Days of Summer

Lost in Translation

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Hitch

Pretty Woman

Runaway Bride

As Good as it Gets

Valentine’s Day

You’ve Got Mail

50 First Dates

My Best Friend’s Wedding

Something’s Gotta Give

The Break Up

Failure to Launch

Sweet Home Alabama

Shakespeare in Love

He’s Just Not That Into You

The Ugly Truth

Two Weeks’ Notice

Moonstruck

Boomerang

Bridget Jones Diary

The Wedding Singer

27 Dresses

Groundhog Day

Shallow Hal

Splash

Letters to Juliette

The Holiday

The Wedding Planner

The American President

Life as We Know It

One Fine Day

Kate and Leopold

The Mirror Has Two Faces

Sense and Sensibility

Manhattan

French Kiss

Blind Date

About Last Night

Roxanne

Pretty in Pink

About A Boy

Because I Said So

Working Girl

Bewitched

Down to Earth

The Secret of my Success

Morocco

Coming Home

The Awful Truth

The Sheik

Quiet Man

Harold and Maude

Porgy and Bess

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Wings of the Dove

What Women Want

Rent a film on DVD tonight and make your Valentine’s Day extra special. And who says it has to be a once a year holiday? Show your sweetie that it’s Valentine’s Day every day with you.

First, don’t attempt something so incredibly hard that even a five star chef would be sweating over it. Go with simple and elegant. If you want to make something really nice, go with steak. If your sweetheart is a vegetarian, opt for a nice pasta dish or lobster tails. You don’t have to make several courses. Just one nice main meal and a dessert is more than enough to show you really care.

Choose your menu based on the fresh ingredients you can get. If you can buy fresh lobster tails, go ahead. But just be aware that popular Valentine’s Day foods like lobster, good steaks, and other succulent treats like shrimp are going to be more expensive as demand increases around the holiday.

Another way to go is to mail order the food. You can either order it frozen, as with lobster or steak. Or you can order it already fully cooked and then just warm everything up and serve it. If you have never taken on an entire meal preparation yourself in your life, a great way to impress your date is to have it all brought in. Just transfer the food over to serving dishes once it’s heated and present it nicely. Whether or not you tell where you got it is up to you.

Many mail order companies will deliver right to your door an entire gourmet meal. Choose from rich chowders and soups, fillet Mignon, roast duck and more. You name it and it can be sent out to you in dry ice in time for the big day. Have it delivered to arrive the day before you need it so you won’t be biting your fingernails wondering if it’s going to make it to you on time.

Serve a nice wine with dinner. If you don’t know how to pick a good wine, ask your friendly neighborhood wine merchant. He or she can suggest the best wines for the meal you are serving. And don’t feel like you have to go ultra expensive. You can buy a decent wine now for a good price and still enjoy every drop.

The fact that you are cooking dinner for your loved one is enough of a treat in and of itself. But make it more special by lighting candles, using the best china and silverware you have, using a linen tablecloth and cloth napkins, and serving the food from your best dishes.

Start off your adults only night by playing some romantic music in the background to set the tone of the evening. Have any disruptive pets calmly partitioned off in the other room if they’re likely to snatch your expensive dinner off your plates. Make it as uninterrupted an evening as possible so you can enjoy yourselves to the fullest.

Turn off cell phones and make it a night for conversation. Watch a romantic movie or two and see where the evening takes you. Chances are you will have a Valentine’s Day to remember.

Here's a little mythology lesson for your Valentine's Day!

In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of  love and beauty.  He is the son of goddess Venus (goddess of love) and god Mercury (messenger god), thus making Cupid the messenger of love!

The story is, Cupid's mother Venus became jealous of a princess named Psyche.  Psyche was so beloved by her subjects that they forgot to worship Venus, so Venus ordered Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the vilest thing in the world. When Cupid saw Psyche, however, he was so overwhelmed by her beauty that he fell in love with her himself.

Cupid began paying visits to Psyche, but he would never reveal himself. But Psyche, with some urging by her sisters, tried to see her lover. She tricked Cupid who became so irate that he left her. Psyche wandered the earth, searching for Cupid. Finally, the god Zeus united her with Cupid and gave them permission to marry. They lived happily ever after, giving birth to a daughter whose name was Voluptas, or Hedone (meaning pleasure). The history of romance has begun!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wales - A long-held tradition of giving Welsh Love spoons to ones lover still occurs on Valentine's Day. The wooden spoons are intricately  carved with symbols representing a wide range of emotions intended to convey the givers feelings. Some of the symbol meanings are: Heart - Love, Horseshoe - Good Luck, Celtic Knot - Eternal Love, Twisted Stem - Two Lives Become One and
Birds - Love Birds or Let's Go Away Together.

Japan - The traditional gift given on Valentine's Day in Japan is chocolate, but great care is taken to make sure that the correct type of chocolate is given because there are two types - one suitable for friends and one for lovers.  Giri choco or obligatory chocolate is given by women to their male friends, co-workers and superiors. Honmei choco is chocolate given to the man that a girl is truly interested in or serious about.

Brazil - Brazil does not celebrate Valentine's Day on the 14th of February. Brazilians celebrate the Dia dos Namorados (Day of the Enamored) on June 12th.  The day is is celebrated in colorful style with festivals and dancing. It is also on this day that couples exchange gifts or give flowers and cards to one another.

Mexico - The most prevalent Valentine's Day tradition in Mexico is to exchange gifts in a secret way. The men of Mexico have another special way of showing their affection to the one they love. In the evening, they show up at the home of their girlfriend with a mariachi band or trio of singers who serenade the girl with 2 or 3 romantic songs while standing beneath her window.

10 Ways To Say I Love You

In common languages of the world!

Arabic - Ana behibak (to male)
Arabic - Ana behibek (to female)
Chinese Cantonese - Ngo oiy ney a
Chinese Mandarin - Wo ai ni
French - Je t'aime, Je t'adore
German - Ich liebe dich
Italian - Ti amo
Japanese - Aishiteru or Anata ga daisuki desu
Russian - Ya tebya liubliu
Spanish - Te quiero / Te amo

Need a gift for your sweetie?  Check out all of our Valentine's Day gifts!

Lovers Lifesaver Relay Game - Before the party, buy a roll of lifesaver candies (red and white for Valentine's Day). To start,  evenly split the party guests into groups of 3 or more players. Have the players for each group line up in a straight line then give each of the players a toothpick that they hold in their mouth (no HANDS allowed). Give the first person in each group's line a lifesaver candy which they hang on the toothpick in their mouth. Once you yell start, the first player in line passes the lifesaver from their toothpick to the toothpick of the next player in line (without using their hands). They pass it to the next and so on until the last person in line has the lifesaver on their toothpick. The first team to get the lifesaver to the end of their relay line wins the game! NOTE: During the game if the lifesaver falls to the ground or someone uses their hands, the team must start all over at the beginning with the lifesaver on the first player's toothpick.

Valentine Suck & Blow Card Game - A great game for a bunch of single people! This hilarious game requires 8 or more players and is best pif you have an even number of people and equal number of men and women so that people can sit boy-girl-boy-girl. Have the party goers sit in a tight circle very close to one another because they will be passing cards with NO HANDS. Give a card from a standard or heart-shaped deck of playing cards to one of the people in the group. The goal is to pass the card to the next person in line without dropping it. The first person holds the card to their mouth by sucking on it like a vacuum, they pass it to the person on the right by placing the card on their mouth so that neighbor will need to suck on the card to hold it while the first person blows (releasing the suction) to let go of the card. Don't drop the card or you'll be kissing the person sitting next to you! This game is sure to get lots of laugh!

Be sure to check out our Valentine gifts and cookies - they make great party centerpieces or game prizes!

Marriage does not mean the loss of autonomy.

Marriage means becoming part of a unit. With children, the size of this unit grows. It may not be run along democratic lines-indeed, ours is not-but belonging to our family unit means that there are three people who care for you more than anyone else. We expect the same in return.

So, my dear, do not fear romantic attachments. One may be the start of your own family unit. Your marriage will be completely different from mine. You will have more choices. You will also not be able to blame your husband if you make the wrong decisions. I taught you to think for yourself but not to put yourself first. I love you.

Mom

Love! We all need that warm, fuzzy, feeling we call love. Love is a strong positive emotion of regard and affection, and love makes the world go around. This wonderful emotion makes us feel wanted and appreciated.

1) Do little things in the course of a day such as leave notes, send holiday gifts or gift baskets, bring home flowers or call just to say you love each other.

2) Make a date with each other. Schedule regular dates without the kids, if possible, and make time for each other.

3) Show affection by holding hands, cuddle, and kiss. This will keep your partner happy and also sets a positive, healthy example for your children.

4) Show your appreciation for each other every day.

5) Keep the communication lines open and truly listen to your partner.

6) Always give 100%.

The most romantic day is nearing - Valentine’s Day! It is a day to celebrate love and romance, and the bonds you have created with your loved one. As the day of love nears, plan to make it an unforgettable day and spark the love and romance in your life.

1) Make your own Valentine’s Day gift card, write a poem or a sincere love letter.

2) Book the honeymoon suite of a hotel and plan a night evening of romance.

3) Plan a romantic getaway.

4) Prepare a candlelight dinner and a night of dancing.

5) Watch a movie that has special meaning to both of you, such as the movie you saw on your first date.

6) Propose all over again.

There are many ways that you can be romantic, but the most important is to say “I love you” on a frequent basis. Those three words go a long way. So what does love have to do with it? Love has everything to do with your relationships and your life. Without love, our existence would be dark and dreary.

Doesn’t it feel wonderful to be loved?

Why do we celebrate Valentine's Day? The beginnings and history of Valentine's Day and its patron saint is shrouded in myth and mystery. However, for ages February has been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day contains trace history of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.

Saint Valentine

Who was Saint Valentine? One legend claims that Valentine was a priest during the third century in Rome. Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men because he decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families. Valentine defied Claudius and performed marriages for young lovers in secret. Claudius, when Valentine's secret actions were discovered, ordered that he be put to death.

Other myths suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.

According to another legend, Valentine sent the first valentine greeting himself. While Valentine was in prison it is said that Valentine fell in love with a young girl who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter which he signed "From your Valentine."

The legends and history of St. Valentine are murky and mysterious. However, the stories portray Saint Valentine as a heroic, caring and romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France. There are many stories, all varying, about what actually became of Valentine. Some say that he was beheaded while others say that he became sick in prison and died.

In 1835, the remains, or at least what are to believed the remains, of St. Valentine were given to an Irish priest, Father John Spratt by Pope Gregory XVI, after Spratt impressed the Pope with his preaching during a visit to Rome. A black and gold casket can still be viewed every Valentine's Day at the Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, Ireland.

Some individuals believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in February to commemorate the anniversary of the death or burial of St. Valentine, which probably happened around 270 AD.

Cupid - The God of Love

Another famous and important symbol to the much celebrated Valentine's Day is the cupid, a mischievous winged boy armed with bows and arrows. Signifying emotions of love and desires, Cupid aims those arrows at Gods and humans causing them to fall deeply in love.

Cupid has always played a role in the celebrations of love and lovers. In ancient Greece he was known as Eros, the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. To the Romans, he was known as Cupid.

In Roman mythology, Venus, Cupid's mother and goddess of love ordered her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man in the world. Venus was overcome with jealousy of Psyche's beauty. Instead, Cupid fell in love with Psyche and brought her to a secluded palace where he visited her only at night.

However, Cupid, unseen by Psyche, forbade her to ever look upon his face. One night Psyche lit a lamp and looked at him while he slept and because she disobeyed him, Cupid punished her by abandoning her and she was left to wander throughout the world in search of her love, Cupid. After many tests and trials she was finally reunited with Cupid and the gods made her goddess.

Cupid and his arrows have become the most popular of love signs. Love is most often depicted by two hearts pierced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow.

Have you been struck by Cupid's arrow? This Valentine's Day, celebrate love and romance with your special someone and visit us for many wonderful gift ideas including delectable chocolate gift baskets, heart shaped gift towers, bath and beauty gift baskets and more.

And, remember, when Valentine's Day has come and gone, the holiday may be over but the Valentine's Day mood should be celebrated every day.