When we were young and inseparable, on Valentine's Day my young boyfriend would present me with a shy gift. What young teen, especially one growing up in a modest  household wouldn't love to be handed, an inexpensive bracelet, a box of chocolates? My then-boyfriend, at age 15, worked part-time at a Hershey's chocolate factory. He would sometimes bring along broken pieces of chocolate to treat me with. He could have brought anything for me, as a young girl who rarely received special items of any description, it was exciting and pleasurable beyond reckoning for someone to recognize me as 'special' by bringing me gifts.

When he was even younger, working part-time as a bicycle-delivery-boy for a local pharmacy, he would make things for me. A neat little box made of cardboard, a 'chest of drawers' made of scrap packing wood, a sweet little greeting card that he had himself painted. Fact is, he's never stopped making things for me. And since this coming June will mark our 65th year of marriage, I've never stopped making things for him as well, only what I make for him is on the edible side; cooking and baking and preparing meals that are intended to appeal to him and mostly do.

Today's offering, in deference to St.Valentine, is a cheesecake with a blueberry topping. And since it's Friday our evening meal will be almost formulaic, in a cultural context. His father was a chicken peddler; (visiting farms in a wide circle around Toronto where we all lived), and would buy chickens on a regular route from farmers he was long familiar with, then truck them to Toronto and re-sell them at a set price to a co-op, which would then supply markets, including food processors.

We have chicken soup with rice or dumplings every Friday night, followed by a chicken dish, and vegetables. A kind of chicken 'stew; chicken slowly simmered in a gravy and vegetables is my husband's lcurrent favourite. The dessert part of the meal is a changing menu of various pies, pastries and cakes for which I seldom seek recipes. Long practise makes for confidence in putting together ingredients with the certainty that the goal of achieving a delectable dessert will result.

No hike through the forest trails in the ravine for Jackie and Jillie and we two today. Yesterday's romp through the woods was icy at -10C, but with a wicked wind felt much colder. New-fallen snow made the trails plushy in depth, requiring more energy than usual to forge through them. The temperature plunged to -26C last night, was -22C this morning, and the high for the day forecast at -17C; with the prevailing wind, more like -31C, cautioned the forecast. So, we're staying at home, just popping out on occasion into the backyard with Jackie and Jillie.

The sun is brilliant and feels warm, streaming through the house windows, illuminating the house and warming it as well; the good thing about having large windows. Windows that are now covered with bright, colourful stained glass that the mature man designed and produced having moved on from making items out of cardboard....as a teen, for his girlfriend. We've settled in for an afternoon of reading and just simply relaxing. We'll wait this one out, and hope for more moderate winter temperatures to follow....