We were thinking about great romantic/valentine’s day-esque date ideas and we turned to our latest new and amazing blogger, EpicurianGirl, to save us.  Her point was that with a snow situation looming it is great to stay-in and cook something both interactive and romantic….and then see where the evening takes you!  She also pointed out (and we applaud this thinking) that you can go out for v-day and pay some jacked up prices for mediocre food, or you can stay in and make your own romance.

It’s the height of winter, way too cold to go out, and I was tired of staying in and not cooking (not cooking = diet coke + salad)… leading me to be tired of salads.  There is just too much salad in my life!

So what is special, romantic, and fun for two people to make together?  Crêpes , mais biensur!

You can learn a lot about a person in the kitchen and this fun dinner will help you get to the bottom of your feelings.

Dinner: Savory crêpes stuffed with shrimp, scallops and asparagus.

Desert: Crêpes with flambéed brandied peaches

For my plan of attack, I decided that the easiest thing was to break down the preparation into stages, leaving plenty of time for you and your love-interest to have an aperitif (why not a Kir royal?):

-       Make the crêpe batter

-       As the batter sits, prep the other ingredients

-       Make the crêpes

-       Make the béchamel sauce

-       Make the seafood

For the crêpes, use the basic recipe for a savory crêpe from your favorite cookbook.  In my case, the Joy of Cooking (Rombauer, Becker) but I found that I had to double the recipe in order to make enough crêpes to see us through to dessert.

The only difference between a savory and sweet crêpe is that you hold the sugar and add at least a ½ teaspoon of salt.

If you’ve never made crêpes before, you might panic when you see how thin the batter is.  That is completely normal.  The crêpes need to be as thin as you can get them.

The crêpe batter will need to sit at least 30 minutes in the fridge, meanwhile, you can clean and prep the asparagus and rinse the seafood.

Once the batter has sat for the appropriate amount of time, go ahead and start making the crêpes.  It turns out that I had no talent for crêpe making and my honey stepped in as my night in shining armor and produced beautiful golden crêpes .  The idea is to work fast: drop a small amount of batter into a hot pan (just barely buttered) and swirl it around off the heat till there is a thin layer coating the entire pan.

If the idea of making crêpes truly terrifies you, you can buy them pre-made in some stores or practice in advance, make them day ahead and just have them ready.  This of course takes most of the fun out of the dinner though.  As a very last resort, the seafood and asparagus with the béchamel sauce would be equally as good over pasta.

Béchamel sauce

This is a great easy sauce that you will drizzle over the seafood, then over the crêpes  It will bring richness to the dish.

After the crêpes were made, I quickly whipped together the béchamel sauce…  I used the basic recipe as found in the Joy of Cooking:

Combine in a sauce pan over very low heat:

-       1 ¼ cup milk

-       A small shallot

-       Pinch nutmeg

Simmer gently for 15 minutes, uncovered to infuse flavor into the milk.  The Joy instructs to discard the onion but I opted to just leave the shallot in.  How can more flavor hurt?

Meanwhile, melt in a medium, heavy sauce pan, over low heat:

-       2 tablespoon unsalted butter

Stir in:

-       2 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Cook for a couple of minutes until slightly darkened.

Still, over very low heat, (or even no heat at all), slowly stir in the warmed milk.  Bring the sauce slowly to a simmer, whisking to prevent lumps.

Again, you can strain if desired of just leave it be like I did.  I also added a generous amount of dry white wine to the béchamel to give it a little added flavor.

Once ready, I put the sauce in a double boiler (put the sauce pan in a slightly larger sauce pan with water in it) to keep it warm while I made the seafood.

Seafood

-asparagus tips

- Scallops (halved or quartered depending how big they are)

- Shrimp (again, cut in half or quarter if jumbo shrimp)

- White wine

- Butter

- Shallots (or just plain oinion)

Sautee shallot in lots of butter, add the asparagus tips, cook till the asparagus starts to soften slightly.

Add the shrimp, add the scallops, a big splash of white wine.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Voilà, you are ready to assemble.

Assembling

Put a couple of tablespoons worth of the seafood into the crêpe, drizzle with a little béchamel, close or roll up the crêpe, drizzle with a little more béchamel.

Dessert: Brandied Peach crêpe

Thinly slice a peach, sauté in butter, add brown sugar. When slightly softened, add some brandy, flambé peaches.

Put flambéed peaches in crêpes, roll up, and pour some of the sauce from the peaches. Top with whipped cream if desired.

Wine pairing:

We tried a Marlborough Sauvigon Blanc (Brancott) from New Zealand and loved it… mineral, fresh, and citrusy.  However, the second wine, a Geyser Peak Chardonnay from Alexander Valley, California, had a full, round, slightly sweet component to it that we agreed (oddly enough) accompanied the seafood nicely as well.  Vive la Romance!

No, I don’t mean seasonal dating. I mean that term used in the polite circles of the June Cleaver era: a “May-December couple” —you know, where one person is at an early stage of life and the other is at a… later stage.

Have you heard about that genius little math formula that men can use to determine the lowest aged woman they can date? No? Ask a single man in his 40s and he will be falling all over himself with excitement to tell you about it. According to the theory, men should halve their age and add 7 in order to find the minimal (ideal?) age in a woman.

(Do I sound bitter? Well, too bad!)

Basically, it’s designed to keep everyone legal. A 22 or 23 year old man should not date below 18. We can all agree that that’s reasonable. But the beauty of the formula is that while the man ages, the women age……much, much less. So by the time a man reaches age 45, his ideal mate could be 29. Sounds perfect, no?

Ostensibly, it’s a sound theory. One supported by nature, biology, and fertility. Assuming of course that you believe women are seeking money/security and men are seeking a baby making vessel. But how about another reason? A recent Q + A over at GuySpeak highlighted the reasons why older men are also better in bed, “Practice makes perfect. The more lovers we have, the more we learn what women want in bed.” Honestly, what more could a girl ask for?

The recent cougar trend seems to be turning this neat practice on its head. Perhaps its merely the advent of botox but I’ve watched enough Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore, Courtney Cox and all the seasons of Desperate Housewives to know that things ain’t what they used to be.

What’s remarkable about the cougar trend is the recognition of an often overlooked fact. Women enter their sexual peak in their 30s. Men in their late teens. Now no one is suggesting that we should go all Mary Kay Letourneau (hell, we can make use of that handy 1/2+7 rule too!) but it does bear consideration that older women are better matched with younger men, (sorry to Cary McNeal of GuySpeak but…) at least in the bedroom. Older men may be more experienced and skilled but their sexual energy level and enthusiasm just does not compare to a man in his 20s….

But Zsa Zsa Gabor figured this out decades ago. Check out her How-To book entitled, How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, and How to Get Rid of a Man, (Doubleday, 1970). Seriously, every girl should own a copy IF just for the hilarity. She agreed that a young woman should marry a man who is in his 40s. But she had a longer term plan than that. She figured the husband would die once the woman reached her 40s. She, then at her sexual peak, should next marry a man who is 18, now at his sexual peak. She will die when he is in his 40s leaving him to marry a young girl and thus continue the cycle. This way, everyone gets their “ya-yas” out.

How to find a young man when you are in your 40s? Simple, she explains. You simply choose among the male friends of your children.

In all sincerity though, there are pros and cons to every union of ages. And although there are ageists out there (watch Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo!) most of us have reasonable high and low ceilings. And at the end of the day, the perfect match probably has very little to do with age.

But just for shits and giggles, tell us. What is the oldest and youngest you’ve ever dated? And would you do it again?