Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer.

Ideas For Gift-Giving

Preface / Introduction
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, this may give you a few ideas for your sweetheart, or,at least, humour you. Enjoy!

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Table of Contents
1. Flower Power. You never need a special reason to use it. Now will do just fine 2. No valentines today? What did you do to deserve them? Two penguins have some advice for you... and so do I! 3. 'Food, glorious food!' Remembering Julia Child at 100, 'La Kweezeen', and la joie de vivre. How we miss her.

Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving

Flower Power. You never need a special reason to use it. Now will do just fine
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant I was at the grocery store the other day; you know, the Shaw's Market at Porter Square, Cambridge. My helper Aime Joseph was doing his usual efficient job of unloading the groceries onto the conveyor belt. I was holding the flowers so they wouldn't get crushed. A tired looking lady was at the cash register, a woman of a certain age. She never looked up to catch my eye... but when ringing up the flowers she brightened: "Someone's lucky today," she said. And without missing a beat, I said: "You!", whereupon I took a fervent red rose from the bouquet and handed it to a now very surprised, rather embarrassed but thoroughly delighted, lady. Flower power, a little bit of greenery, some blazing color, had done their work again. And they'll work as well for you, too. Flower from the Latin flos, from the Old French flour According to my ever useful dictionary, flower means "A blooming plant." It also means, and this I think more useful, "The brightest, finest, choicest part, period, or specimen of anything." Thus, when you give flowers, you give "the brightest, finest." Flowers transform the mundane into the memorable. We are living through difficult times. Millions are afflicted by a punk economy, by unemployment and job loss, by house foreclosures and pension shrinkage. If Charles Dickens were alive today, he could well and truly write, "These are the worst of times". He might well leave off the other half of his famous line, "These are the best of times" as being manifestly untrue. However, we, the living, must do the best we can... and flowers undeniably help. Don't wait for a "special" occasion.... call up the power of flowers now. I am always amused when on such holidays as Valentine's Day and Christmas, I see the long lines at the florist shoppes. It is good, of course, that they are there; any time is a time that flowers brighten. But these are folks (usually male) who haven't quite glimpsed the power of the unexpected flower. They are there,in that never-ending line, to cover themselves, lest they be accused of forgetfulness and insensitivity! Rather, I applaud the person who, quite clear on flower power, delivers flowers today simply because it is today, no further reason being needed. I think I saw such a person the other day walking down Massachusetts Avenue in my neighborhood. A bit sheepish, he held his bouquet high, a mixture of pride and embarrassment. I was hopeful there was no other reason for those flowers except to say "because you're you..." Know thy florists Personally,I make it a point to know and try all the florists in my neighborhood. I like to see their very different approaches to the business of brightening the world. At Trader Joe's, for instance, there is always an eye-catching variety which in the Trader Joe's tradition is limited... but always good value. It is a pity they are rather inconveniently located for my visits. http://www.TheHomeOfficePeople.com Copyright Lisa Martiniuk - 2013 4 of 11

Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving Tommy at the Montrose Spa added flowers to his convenience store line about a year or so ago. They are not his priority and as such he lets them sit too long, petals and leaves falling off, woebegone and in need of caring homes quickly. But Tommy waits too long to bring the price down and so there are always moribund flowers in the corner, sad, their powers diminishing by the moment. There are two florists in Harvard Square, both conveniently located. However, I don't patronize them unless it's an emergency. The folks at Brattle Street Florist always seem too rushed to help. I like to have a good look-see... and always appreciate the considered opinion of the proprietor. I also like to know when the roses came in, to be sure I am getting them at their prime. I'm a stickler for freshness. John at Petali, handy in Forbes Plaza, tells me what I need to know, but he never quite focuses and though he waves to me on days when he bicycles past my house, I sense he is distracted, with other things on his mind. I feel like going into his shop and buying flowers for... him. He would smile then. Then there's the Central Square Florist. I never go there in person. (Central Square is another world for me. Denizens call it "between the brains", because Harvard is one subway stop further on and MIT is one subway stop before.) But I have ordered so regularly over time they sent me a special "frequent flower" card. I keep it in my wallet, but always forget to use it. However, they seem to know me when I call... and perhaps they give me a discount since I am a member of their club. I never ask. This brings us back to the flowers from Shaw's Market. They always seem a tad brash, bold. But they are handy, reasonably priced, and employees are happy, when I ask, to give me extra plant food, which I never hesitate to thank them for and take, sometimes forgetting to use it after all. Don't forget the card Flowers, despite the power of plant food, do die in due course, despite my many ministrations. But the card that accompanies them can last forever. After my mother died, I found amongst her many effects, a few of the cards she found meaningful, from long-ago events. Often she had taped or stapled one of the flowers from that bouquet to the card. In her copper-plate hand she annotated the back of the card... which touched and reminded me how much I missed her. Even long-dead flowers and their cards can do that. This is why I shall never stop buying flowers and giving them to the people I care about... or even total strangers who seem to need them and always smile at the gift.

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Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving

No valentines today? What did you do to deserve them? Two penguins have some advice for you... and so do I!
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Today, February 14, 2011, is Valentine's Day. Millions of people worldwide will participate in this essential rite of love which usually involves men standing in lines for hours at expensive candy shops and florists with overburdened, surly help... then trekking their purchases home, very selfconsciously, with more hope than expectation that She Who Must Be Obeyed will be, for an instant, completely satisfied with him. Millions of people today will get some such token of affection, usually of the hackneyed chocolate or red rose variety. But the sad fact is, millions more will get no affectionate sentiment or token of any kind today... and they will deserve the slight. To deal with this irritating, indeed humiliating situation, of the "what a revolting development this is" variety, I have called upon two love birds of my acquaintance, Penguins Ishaboe and Spheniscus, inhabitants at the New England Aquarium, Boston, Massachusetts. They know a thing or two on the subject of love and affection... and being helpful critters they are happy to share what they know... Ishaboe (male) and Spheniscus (female) are a mating pair of African penguins, a bird so rare that it may well become extinct in the next 15 years. Concerned researchers at institutions worldwide are engaged in a strenuous effort to save the breed while they still can. This means taking an obsessive interest in their amatory habits. What they've learned is instructive... not just for the penguins but for their love-challenged human keepers as well. First of all, they like each other... and they're never afraid to show it, even with hundreds of prying eyes looking at them. Ol' Blue Eyes, crooning Sinatra, the chairman of the board, knew just how exciting Total Focus on your love interest can be: Are the stars out tonight? I don't know if it's cloudy or bright. 'Cause I only have eyes for you, dear. (Release date 1949). Or, if you prefer a more insistent beat, try this punchy line from the Miracles... I'm just a love machine... and I won't work for nobody but YOU! (Released 1975.) These smart penguins practice what they preach. Why just the other day, marooned together on their high-class desert island (scrubbed clean every single day), splashing care-free in the 150,000 gallons of Boston Harbor water, constantly filtered, they literally couldn't take their eyes off each other... and didn't. Even experienced researchers, used to penguin fidelity, found this total attention worthy of note. When was the last time, you gave your love interest your total, unqualified focus? Stumped? Can't remember? That's where your problems begin... and it doesn't matter how old you are, either. Why, in my Harvard Square neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts the students at the World's Greatest University think nothing of holding hands with Love Interest #1, while furiously text messaging Love Interest #2. Thus they always have a back-up when their togetherness shreds, a thing they anticipate, expect, and plan for. And some dare call this love! So, Rule #1 to make this day special... don't just give a card with printed sentiments written for the poetically destitute. Don't merely plunk down a few bucks for a box of Fannie May or Whitman's http://www.TheHomeOfficePeople.com Copyright Lisa Martiniuk - 2013 6 of 11

Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving quaint Sampler and think it's "good enough". As that wag Sir Percy Blakeney, baronet, said in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (published 1905) "There is nothing that is quite so bad as that which is good enough." Exactly. You selected your would-be Valentine for a reason. Recall that reason now... Then move out of the dull and dreary to the new, energized, alluring you, the fountainhead of dreams, seductions, shared pleasures. Instead of the unexciting red rose, lay down a trail of rose petals that lead to a pulsating, provocative......... YOU! Or do a Hansel and Gretel number (from the story by the Brothers Grimm published 1812). Lay down one tell-tale chocolate after another, until X marks the spot where your one and only finds.....YOU and nothing but you, exciting, uninhibited, memorable.... If you've let your relationship grow stale, shame on you when just a little such inventiveness is required to revivify and re-ignite. Our penguin pair knows this. When one is away for a moment, they tenderly call a la Jeanette McDonald. Upon returning, they bow to each other, polite, thrilled to be rejoined. To make clear their interest, they preen, they posture, they give food to demonstrate affection... they are assiduous, inventive, playful... and from their unceasing inventiveness comes a helluva good time; they enjoy seeing how they can top their own creative efforts and show the profound affection they so obviously feel for each other. Our penguin pair knows, too, that the secret of this day is the line from "My Funny Valentine" (from the musical "Babes in Arms," Rodgers and Hart, 1937.) Each day is Valentine's Day. Here the penguins excel. Today they will act towards each other, the way they act every day. They will neither note nor care that this is a day dedicated to the arts of love. Should someone say so, they would laugh, wondering why any creature, any place limit to a single day the fond sentiments and delights which are best given every day, in all places. They will then go back to their tried and true ways of love, oblivious to you and me. It is more than sad that such creatures are imperiled, the victims of over fishing and changes in ocean currents which remove the penguins from their foods. Catastrophe looms as their once vast numbers plummet. If these are, indeed, their last days (though human friends are helping), they mean to go out as they have lived these generations past, engrossed in each other, loving as if there was no tomorrow. And so should we all.

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Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving

'Food, glorious food!' Remembering Julia Child at 100, 'La Kweezeen', and la joie de vivre. How we miss her.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. I want you to know right from the start that this is a valentine of the old-fashioned sort, festooned with frills, satin, and a huge red heart for your special lady with its sentimental message of exuberant and eternal affection quite simply over-the-moon... and the great thing is: I mean every word that follows, even the most cloying. To begin at the beginning Julia Child, my near neighbor in Cambridge, Massachusetts for so many years, was kind to me when I was a graduate student at Harvard. It happened like this... I was in charge of program development for Dudley House, the house that caters to non-resident undergraduates. It was a wonderful place and Master Jean Mayer, the celebrated nutritionist, gave me cart blanche to invite celebrated folk to take tea or lunch with our privileged members. I used my executive authority to invite the people I most wanted to meet. In this way, I came to know many celebrities including Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, poet Anne Sexton, actress Margaret Hamilton, His much misunderstood Eminence Cardinal Medeiros, Senator George McGovern, and many others. Each was celebrated; each had presence; each knew how to capture and retain an audience; each (with the possible exception of frosty Ambassador Lodge) made it clear they were glad to be invited and aimed to charm everyone. No dog put on. Julia Child came for lunch and conversation one day in 1974... and right from the start was determined to like us... as we were determined to show her how much we already liked her and how glad we were she'd come to share our typical institutional fare, for nothing special was arranged in the food department. She had to take us as we were. This meant grabbing a tray and feasting your eyes on a bill of fare that said more about our tolerance for what was set before us daily than the quality of what we ate. As a graduate student, I treated food as fuel and nothing else. I ate what was available, complained only the necessary and prescribed amount, and never made a single suggestion about how to improve matters. Like all graduate students, my mind, heart, body, and soul were focused on the dissertation, and absolutely nothing else. It was only years later that I learned that the most important voice in the development of French cuisine felt the same way about food that I did when she was young. It was necessary... it was usually prosaic, mundane, boring, something to be rushed through as soon as possible, indigestion a small price to pay for galloping through another dull meal, the faster to get on to whatever we liked better, which is to say virtually anything else. "The carrots were watery." One thing I'll say on my own behalf (if you'd known it before now I'm sure you would have noted this fact and planted a nice compliment on me) is how well organized and efficient these intimate get-acquainted and learn-from sessions were. I kept my 3' x 5" cards for each event readily accessible, for updating and to keep on track. Thus, I would have greeted Mrs. Child (as we all called her) on the front steps of Dudley House's grand Georgian facade. I was never late. I advised her who she would meet and to say a special word to the unsung food manager who would be crushed without it. Faculty members present would be especially noted and my cronies who would be disappointed if I didn't use my entree' and privileged access on behalf of their favorite http://www.TheHomeOfficePeople.com Copyright Lisa Martiniuk - 2013 8 of 11

Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving hobbyhorse were never forgotten. Favors to so many enabled me to call in favors when necessary... and I never hesitated to do so. Deal makers like me always need the wherewithal to make them. Keep this tit-bit in mind. It's worth remembering. Ordinarily, given my acute disinterest in food, which has continued to this very day, I would have recalled nothing about what was served and (with what degree of enthusiasm) eaten. But Mrs. Child ensured otherwise. "The carrots were watery," she intoned in her unmistakable trill, a mixture of Smith College (where she graduated in 1934), the gratin of Paris, with more than a soupcon of self-mocking humor. Thus it was entirely within her magic to render her verdict on watery carrots as if she were Madame de Pompadour... We all would have been disappointed if she hadn't said so. It meant she was paying attention, and we were honored she had. What I wanted to know. At last luncheon was over, and it was time for the presentation I always mc'ed, sitting next to the special guest, asking the questions I wanted, recognizing others (or not) as necessary. For each special guest I had a motive; I wanted them to help ignite my future by an apt retailing of crucial aspects of their past. And today I wanted to know, from her own lips, how a young woman without self confidence, an undistinguished student, a rule breaker, mischief maker, unending amounts of time spent on boys, partying, sports and dissipation had not merely risen to publishing and media stardom -- and a hefty fortune --but had become a certified cultural icon, responsible for elevating cuisine to its desirable and necessary place in the lives of all who value la dolce vita. How indeed. "Food, glorious food!/ We're anxious to try it." In 1968 a British musical film directed by Carol Reed with music by Lionel Bart gave us the best song ever written on food. It was "Food, Glorious Food" from "Oliver!", a joyous, rip-roaring production based on Charles Dickens' revered novel of 1837 titled "Oliver Twist". At the 41st Academy Awards it was selected as "Best Picture Of The Year". It was the kind of film whose songs you find yourself humming at inopportune times, like a funeral. This would have been one of them: "Is it worth the waiting for?/ If we live 'til eighty four/ All we ever get is gru... el." Julia Chiild had this revelation, that all her previous meals were as gruel after her first meal in Rouen after World War II. She remembered all her life its inimitable courses, each one a wake-up call to palate and a way of living better: oysters, sole meuniere, and fine wine. Her husband (they were married in 1946), Paul, an epicurean and connoisseur, wanted Julia to cook such meals for him at home. To oblige the love of her life she studied at Paris' renowned Le Cordon Bleu, where in due course she became the most celebrated of its graduates. What she learned was not only about food... but about the position of fine food in the well-lived life. And on this basis she launched a revolution that resonates to this hour. Her first centenary. Julia McWilliams was born August 15, 1912, a century ago. Her true metier was enhancing lives and adding grace and joy to the mere functionality of food. To celebrate and explain her achievement, well-known author Bob Spitz has written "Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child." The only thing that bothered me about his subject and research was that she never called me "dearie". She would have if I'd asked... for that's what she called all her favorite people. Musical note: Go to any search engine now and play "Food, Glorious Food" and make a reservation for the finest restaurant in your neighborhood. You may be sure its high standards and quality presentation owe much to Julia Child and her man behind the throne, Paul, (d.1994) diminutive in size but puissant. It all started because she loved him so and wanted to improve the quality of his http://www.TheHomeOfficePeople.com Copyright Lisa Martiniuk - 2013 9 of 11

Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving life. She did... and we are all the beneficiaries.

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Valentine's Day Is Looming Nearer. Ideas For Gift-Giving

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Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online through automation. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Republished with author's permission by Lisa Martiniuk http://TheHomeOfficePeople.com.

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