Valentine's Day Cookies

I’d like to pretend this is an entry that will share information about delightful, local foods connected to Valentine’s Day, filled with suggestions of local, artisanal chocolatiers and hot house roses grown nearby.

Alas, it is not.  In fact, manufactured, over-hyped holidays like Valentine’s Day always make me feel like a grinch.  From December 26 onwards, my heart sinks when I see stores immediately and almost breathlessly clear the Christmas, Hanukah and New Years’ items from their shelves, and start stocking red cellophane-wrapped chocolate boxes, chalky pink candies and red plastic novelty items.   This desperate need to purchase hearts and chocolate and roses and cards in February – to my cynical mind, it just seems like a way to get people to spend money mindlessly in a shallow, futile attempt to participate and do the right thing and keep up with everyone else.  Not that I'm judging, mind you.

Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays with a muddled heritage – there actually were several St. Valentines and they were all Christian martyrs. They had nothing to do with romance and roses.  And, in fact, the Catholic Church REMOVED St. Valentine’s day from their official calendar of saints’ days in 1969.  So what’s all the celebrating about?

The holiday, in fact, seems to be derived from Lupercalia, a Roman fertility holiday celebrated sometime in February, which was in turn related to Februa, an earlier spring cleaning kind of festival.  Perhaps we’d all be better off if we celebrated Valentine’s Day with a good, deep cleaning rather than boxes of chocolate!  (Oh, how grim.) Mentions of St. Valentine's day crop up in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and John Donne's poetry, and by the 19th century, sending cards made of paper, or lace and ribbons became the thing in England and quickly skipped across the pond to America.  Ah, the history of commercialization.

But, I will celebrate any holiday if it involves baking.  Purim?  Hamen taschen!  Diwali?  Gulab Jamuns!  Chinese New Year?  Dumplings!

Herewith, then, is my Valentine’s Day Cookie Recipe.   There is nothing local, organic or wholesome about it.   And I have no idea where the recipe came from, except that I’ve made it every Valentine’s Day for the past 10 years or so.  It’s fancy looking and not too sweet.

CHOCOLATE HEART COOKIES

 Ingredients:

1 cup butter softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 cup vanilla chips
2 Tablespoons shortening
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Method:

1.            Cream butter and sugar, beat in vanilla.  Combine flour and cocoa in a separate bowl and gradually add to creamed mixture.

2.            On lightly floured surface roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with heart cookie cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

3.            For icing, melt vanilla chips and 1 tablespoon of shortening.  (I do this in the microwave in short, 10 second bursts, stirring between each zap.)  Dip both end of cookies into melted mixture. Heat semi-sweet chips and remaining shortening and drizzle over dipped cookies.  (I find the best way to drizzle is to scrape the slightly cooled, melted chocolate into a zip top bag, seal it, snip off a tiny corner and squeeze.)