My Valentine’s Day actually began on Thursday, February 13th. My favorite food truck, CupKates Bakery, was advertising Strawberry Shortcake cupcakes as their special for 3 days, in honor of Valentine’s Day. I picked up 3 of them – one for my boy, A; one for my female boss, C; and one for myself. A. wasn’t at his desk, so I took a pink post-it note, wrote “Will you be my VALENTINE?” on it and placed it in front of his computer with the cupcake. When he got back to to his desk and saw it, he came over to me and asked “Did you leave that cupcake at my desk?” “Of course!” (C. and I always feed him.) He then gave me a big hug and said “Of course I’ll be your valentine! Thank you!” As a little follow-up, C. enjoyed the Strawberry Shortcake cupcake, but said that it wouldn’t be one that she’d order all the time. A. loved it, especially the fresh strawberries in the middle of the shortcake. I liked it as well, but felt about the same as C.
Later that afternoon, I had the misfortune of tearing my left contact lens. It had been bothering me. As I was trying to take it out to rinse it off, it flew out of my eye and onto the floor. While looking for it, there’s a very good chance that I ran it over with my chair ’cause it was most definitely ripped when I found it. I was joking with A. that I was going to devise an eye patch out of a cracker and some duct tape. He suggested that I use the pink post-it note I gave him that said “Will you be my VALENTINE?” For some reason, that reminds me of the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the girl writes “Love You” on her eyelids and keeps batting her eyes at the instructor!
When I got into the office on Friday, I was disappointed to discover that A. was on a business trip to Seattle with one of the VP’s. What? He’s two-timing on me already?! CupKates cheered me up once again. Believe it or not, I follow several San Francisco food trucks on Twitter. When they’re in the FiDi neighborhood around lunch, I inform everyone and we go stand in line! CupKates advertised strawberry and Nutella macarons on Valentine’s Day. I LOVE macarons – Laduree ones and others in Paris, Chantal Guillon ones in San Francisco. (IMHO, the ones from Miette are horrible!) Since A. was out of the office, I wandered over to C.’s office to see if she was interested in having a macaron. She wanted a Nutella one. At the truck, they informed me that the macarons were being sold in a packet of 2, one of each, for $4. I picked up 2 packets. I left one on C.’s desk and kept the other for myself, I was really only interested in the strawberry one. It was of a decent size and quite flavorful. My intention was to give the Nutella one to another analyst, M. However, M. took so long on his lunch break that I gave in and ate it. OMG! I wasn’t in the mood for hazelnut, but that Nutella macaron was amazing! It didn’t taste like hazelnut to me, but more like an extra luscious, extremely decadent chocolate. I regretted not buying yet another packet.
Much like last year, my friend, T., and I made reservations for Valentine’s Day dinner at E Tutto Qua. I truly like their food, but T., who’s gay, enjoys checking out the waiters. Ok, I admit it; I enjoy checking out the cute Italian waiters, too. T. is aware that I know a fair amount of the waiters and bartenders from places in North Beach that I used to or currently frequent. When I walked in, the host gave me a huge hug and said that he hasn’t seen me in awhile. He gave me a table downstairs, as he knows that I don’t like to sit upstairs. T. showed up a few minutes later. We settled on the seared scallops appetizer, the burrata with arugula and cherry tomatos, the paccheri golosi (for me) and the swordfish (for him). We shared the two appetizers, which were delicious. I can never get enough of their paccheri golosi, which is large tube pasta stuffed with prosciutto, porcini mushrooms and truffle oil in a cream sauce. T.’s swordfish, however, was underwhelming for him. He found it dry and flavorless. I’d suggested to him to have the sea bass instead, but the waiter kept trying to push the swordfish. Oh well. T. chose the affogato, gelato topped with espresso, for dessert. I didn’t have any. Beings this is supposed to be my gym period, I’m definitely not supposed to be eating dinner at night, anyway, unless I’ve already been to the gym. Of course, we won’t mention the two glasses of Sangiovese that I had! Conversation-wise, we had a very funny chat about getting massages in different countries. For our visual entertainment, T. and I both agreed on the same waiter, as well as one of the guys behind the bar, as being the two hottest guys in there. One of the waiters had come up to our table and said that I looked familiar. I admitted that I used to frequent E Tutto Qua from about 2006 to 2009, but go there infrequently now. I’m sure that T. and I can think up excuses to go back at least once per month to check out those two particular guys, though!
After dinner, we went to Panta Rei and had drinks. T. is planning on spending some time in Sicily in September. He’d asked if I knew any Italian guys from Sicily. There used to be 2 Sicilian guys at Panta Rei. Of course, neither were working when we arrived. Then I suddenly remembered that L, the bartender, though Italian-American, had lived in Sicily for awhile. I asked L. where in Sicily he’d lived (Palermo), then informed him that T. was planning a trip there and would like some information. T. asked him several questions and they bantered back and forth. When we left, L. hugged me and told me not to wait another 3 months to come back.
Thus, my Gay Valentine and I had a nice Valentine’s Day – good dinner (for the most part), hot Italian guys, drinks and information on Sicily. I was going to post photos of our dinner. Unfortunately, I took the photos with my camera phone. When I try to E-mail them to myself, they don’t want to download. Sorry! I’ll use my real camera in the future.