Because Nellie’s birthday was a few days ago, she traditionally makes a bigger deal out of Valentine’s Day by making a nice meal and some kind of fancy dessert. This year she decided to make it rather official and posted the menu on the message board just inside our door.

In case you can’t read it (her cooking is better than her handwriting, fortunately) here’s the lineup:

• Appetizer: La Quercia prosciutto and a 2008 Fielding Estate Pinot Gris
• Main: New York strips from Cumbrae’s and a bottle of Alchemy from L’Acadie Vineyards
• Dessert: homemade dark chocolate mousse (using 70% cocoa Valrhona chocolate from MoRoCo) and whiskey whipped cream (using ten-year-old Glen Breton whisky — which is either whisky or whiskey, depending who you ask — aged in ice wine barrels). What she forgot to include is the bottle of Gaspereau Vineyards maple dessert wine that we’ll open if there’s room and our taste buds can handle it.

My next blog will be typed while lying on my side, moaning and clutching my stomach.

[UPDATE: It were amazing.]