Sometimes I feel like I devoted all my creative powers strictly to my art, because I have absolutely no talent for cooking or baking. If I see a recipe that has more than 5 ingredients, my brain panics and shuts down. Fortunately I married a man who is very comfortable in the kitchen, and loves to explore lots of different cuisines.  I have even had to hold him back once or twice as to not hurt our bank account too badly (you should have seen the puppy-dog eyes he was giving he as he held up that $25 rack of lamb at Wegman’s not too long ago.  Maybe next time, Jeff…).  So, we have given Jeff appropriate nick names such as Mr. Spice Guy and Chef Jeff.

Since I knew he was cooking up some kind of delicious plan for Valentine’s day (as he always does) I knew I had to make something to accompany it well.  Last year Jeff surprised me with a home cooked steak dinner, a cheese tasting course involving Spanish Iberico, Goat Milk Brie, and a Chocolate English Cheddar with figs and walnuts.  We finished our meal with a progressive chocolate tasting, starting at 29% cocoa all the way up to 90%.  So obviously he puts a lot of thought into these things.

This year he did not disappoint with coconut rice topped with coconut chicken curry, and ended with lime sorbet a top some sweet coconut sticky rice drizzled with, you guessed it, coconut cream syrup.

As for my contribution, my first plan of a stay-in movie night was thwarted when he found the new Whirley-Pop in my hiding place, and mom couldn’t bring some Henry Whinehard’s rootbeer (Jeff’s favorite) from Utah because she wasn’t checking her bag.  Jeff also found the new ramekins I bought him during the move.  So I was left with a paella pan (which he has been wanting for years now) and this print that I made for him:

We have always wanted a fun art to hang in our kitchen, and always liked the thought of a retro-ish kitchen collage.  I think this turned out exactly how I pictured it!  It was fun working with vectors again, as I haven’t used illustrator in a long time for illustrations.  I also took multiple trips to the kitchen to see what to illustrate.  If I did it all over again, I think I would do it more stylized and create more interesting, unique items (like the matryoska measuring cups we have).  The color scheme works perfectly with our sunny yellow kitchen walls, and it totally our style.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Jeffrey!