Welcome to Week of Love

Columbus Day and Valentine's Day: America's two most guilt-laden holidays. The countdown to showing how much you love your lover or picking up a random stranger in a coffee shop in order to feel better about yourself is now set at seven days.

Here at Voracious, we want to foster a decrease in the tension and/or bitterness surrounding this day of joy. Over the next week look to us for restaurant ideas, food and wine tips, and other thoughtful writeups of the press releases that we've received this past month.

I personally want to launch Week of Love by reproducing a recipe from "Old-Fashion" and "New," the 1971 cookbook published by the Fairview Mennonite Church in Fairview, Michigan (my grandmother contributed recipes for sweet pickle relish and Rice Krispie-coated pork chops). This recipe is attributed to Mrs. Milo Miller of Shipshewana, Indiana, but has apparently been tested by Grace Bontrager and Margaret Hershberger, who both contributed it to the cookbook:

How to Preserve a Husband

Be careful in your selection. Do not choose too young and take only such as have been reared in a good moral atmosphere. Some insist on keeping them in a pickle while others keep them in hot water. This only makes them sour, hard, and sometimes bitter. Even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender, and good by garnishing them with patience, well sweetened with smiles and flavored with kisses to taste. Then wrap them in a mantle of charity, keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion, and serve with peaches and cream. When thus prepared they will keep for years.