This Valentine’s day please give yourself a reward (large or small) for having made it this far.
And let’s go wider with our gift-giving. Galentine’s Day (great idea, terrible name) was just the beginning. Let’s include family members, friends, even pets. If you love someone, give them a treat.
The All-Clad 4 quart slow cooker, ($175) is a great gift to buy yourself. It doesn’t look too aggressively large on the kitchen counter, but is still big enough for make meals for four. It is less about getting yet another appliance and more about the irrefutable fact that waking up to a hot breakfast is life-changing.
Overnight Hot Steel Cut Breakfast Oats
Before bed, butter the inside of the ceramic liner with a teaspoon of softened butter to prevent sticking (do not skip this step.) Add one cup of dry steel cut oats (not the quick cooking version and definitely not rolled oats) a diced apple (don’t bother peeling it,) some walnut pieces, a quarter cup of golden raisins, several shakes of ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice and 4 1/2 cups of liquid (water, milk, nut milk or any combination of the three) and set the slow cooker on ‘low’ for 8 hours and hit the start button.
Then tidy the counter and lay out nice bowls, spoons, napkins and a non-scratch serving spoon (I like this silicone one from Muji, $12.90) and when you wake up you will have a hot breakfast waiting (the machine will switch to warm after the eight hour cycle is complete) and you will think ‘How lovely. My staff prepared breakfast for me,’ and your day will be off to the best possible start.
The Kosta Boda Snowball votive holder, $49, WilliamAshley.com, is a 1973 Scandi design classic from Sweden that is still in production. Just one (they’re three inches tall) adds a warm, refractive glow to your mantle or coffee table in these later winter months. It’s wintery, but not Christmassy.
Zara Vetiver Pamplemousse eau de parfum, $39.90, Zara.com, created by Jo Malone no less, is not a complicated scent. It’s actually pretty linear, just vetiver and grapefruit. But what it lacks in nuance, it makes up for in eye-opening, happy-making grapefruity zest and rain-soaked, humid jungle vetiver. It is so wonderfully alive and invigorating and because it is (relatively) inexpensive, you can use it liberally. Spray a giant cloud and walk through it? Sure. Bring life back to a stuffy a stuffy room? Absolutely. It’s not a classically ‘romantic’ rich or floral Valentine’s scent, but it is the promise of spring.
Did you read The Thorn Birds (Indigo.ca) when it came out in 1977? How about Scruples, Princess Daisy, Flowers in the Attic or Judy Blume’s Forever? A nostalgic dive into the books we read right under our parents’ noses is calming in a way that a new book just isn’t. This is the perfect gift for an old friend to remind them of just how long you’ve known each other.
I am totally charmed (sorry) by the idea of wearing a loved one’s (spouse, child or pet) diamond-studded initial around your neck. These wee 8mm high letters (not including the ‘bail’) are from Canadian-owned Mejuri.com, $265.
Toronto’s Soma Chocolatemaker should get a medal for making sophisticated high quality chocolates that include all the fun and mouth fizz of pop rocks. Their new Wild Berry Pop bar, $12, somachocolate.com of white chocolate with fruit and pop rocks is as if the gods somehow made fruity cereal milk into a creamy, melty solid that also fizzes. And how beautiful is this packaging?