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Valentine’s Day is a reminder
that regular romance and intimacy are necessary for a
healthy marriage or relationship. Designating quality time
to spend together as a couple is essential in order to keep
the relationship fresh.
This year, my wife Willetta
and I decided to cook a special meal together. For her,
“Intimacy is a closeness you can’t adequately do at a
restaurant. The experience of doing the actual chopping,
seasoning and cooking the food together itself is romantic
for me. The conversation is different and we even get to
listen to our own special music. No restaurant can do that
for us and I enjoy the intimacy of just the two of us
alone,” she says.
Yet, an evening of romance,
for busy couples especially, requires that it be planned
with purpose and detail from start to finish. We would have
to make several choices.
The Menu:
Our demanding schedules
dictated a simple menu that would also be elegant and
delicious. Willetta had a taste for steak and I wanted
seafood. We settled on both prime cut porterhouse steaks and
Alaskan king crab with twice-baked potatoes and a classic
wedge salad. Sparkling white Sangria would top off the meal.
I was assigned to shop for
the ingredients. It’s important to have a relationship with
a good butcher, an established seafood supplier and a
well-stocked gourmet shop. Anderson’s, at least for now, is
my place of choice for unique spices and specialty cheeses.
For seafood, it is Rohr’s Fish Company. Rohr’s, unlike most
fish sellers, receives fresh shipments daily from North
American suppliers and does not sell the problematic
farm-raised seafood items that come from locations such as
South America or Asia. Sautter’s Food Center in Sylvania is
one of the best local sources for prime cuts of beef but
Meijer stores also provide high quality and fresh meats.
For dessert, nothing says
love better than chocolate and strawberries. We decided to
go with chocolate and strawberry ice cream rather than
traditional candies or fruit.
Atmosphere:
Creating the atmosphere for
love involves responding to each other’s preferences, a
process that is fun for me and also appreciated by my wife.
“A lot of what I perceive to
be intimacy and romance,” I tell her, “is trying to please
you by not having you feel that everything around the house
has to be done entirely by you without help from me or my
getting involved.”
Willetta affirms my esteem by
responding, “I think what resonates with me is when you go
out to look for something nice for the table. Men don’t
generally understand what that means to women.”
So, what color scheme would
best create the mood for romance for our date?
“I think I would like a
pretty pink and white table for Valentine’s Day,” Willetta
maintains. But I am not feeling the pink. I prefer gold. So,
we eventually decide upon a red and gold with an off-white
tablecloth so as to not look “too Christmasy.”
With tableware already in the
china cabinet, we must order a centerpiece of fresh flowers
to make the table complete. I call Keith Brooks of Hafner
Florists, perhaps the best floral designer in the area,
inform him of the color scheme and leave the rest to his
creativity.
Next, however, because it can
make or break the entire date, we focus on selecting the
right music to play throughout our special time together.
Music, first of all, sets the
mood for the cooking task. “Just like in the movie Car Wash,
when they turned the music off, the employees wouldn’t or
couldn’t work. When the music was on, they really got those
cars through the process. That’s what music is about,” says
Willetta.
“And music takes me back to
special moments in the past,” she adds. “When Staci was
born, for instance, we were listening to a lot of jazz,
Donald Byrd’s “Butterfly,” Grover Washington, Jr.’s
“Winelight” and George Duke’s music. So I just think music
is one of the best gifts that God has given us. It evokes
emotion. Music can change your mood. It’s all about the
senses. Your taste, smell, hearing all of those senses are
heightened, not just physically, but also emotionally,” she
maintains.”
Our selection of the playlist
went like this:
Me: “What would you like on
the playlist?”
Willetta: “Well, it’s
Valentine’s Day, so I definitely think of ballads. Stevie
Wonder has to be on the list. And Heat Wave’s “Always and
Forever” is one of your favorites. But selections by Luther,
Marvin Gaye and Jeffrey Osborne, should be included also.”
Me: “What about The Isleys?
Early in our marriage and about the time that Tracee was
born, we kept songs like “Voyage to Atlantis” and “For the
Love of You” in heavy rotation. So that definitely brings
back memories.”
Willetta: “Yes, yes, yes!”
Finally, The Meal:
The biggest challenge, for a
novice like me, has been to learn the nuanced rhythms of my
wife’s culinary skills so that we could dance together in
the kitchen without my stepping on her toes, so to speak.
She requires fresh herbs and
spices and deplores ingredients such as processed garlic or
commercial seasoning mixes. Willetta also has little
patience for my numerous requests for explanations of her
choices of ingredients and techniques. At times she gently,
but firmly gets me back in rhythm in the kitchen.
“In the process of cooking,”
she maintains, “You have to be focused on the food itself.
It’s not a science project. If I am stirring gravy and it’s
browning quickly, I don’t have time, then, to stop and talk
or explain why. You’ve got to hurry up and get me some water
because if you don’t, the gravy is gonna be too dark or
ruined. So, it’s not only about the love, it’s also that we
are creating an art form, and as a couple, we don’t limit it
to the process but we want a great product also.”
So, having made a purposeful
choice to make romance and intimacy a priority in our
marriage, we came together to spend quality time on
Valentine’s Day. We planned the evening. We developed a
menu, created a mood for romance, and stood next to each
other cutting and sautéing vegetables. We both gave and took
in order to bond together and cook a wonderful wonderful
meal.
So now, let’s sit down, relax
and enjoy our creation and see where the adventure finally
takes us.
“Wait. That’s the doorbell.
Can you get it?”
“Who is it?”
It’s the kids and our grand
daughter. For, they seem to have a knack for showing up just
when the work is done and the food is ready!
“Oh well. I love you, Honey!”
“I love you too, Boo!”
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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