Happy Valentine's Day!

Difficult past times have made us very grateful for a holiday that isn't in a traumatic context. The night preceding Valentine's Day we were fortunate enough to catch Clap Your Hands Say Yeah play at the Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn as part of the Sounds Like Brooklyn music festival. Fronting them were Chairlift, who I haven't heard of before, but they were excellent - kind of like an Indie version of a mix between Clannad, Blondie and the Cranberries.

On Valentine's Day we went back to Brooklyn for brunch at Dressler, a little Michelin-star restaurant (and yet very reasonable prices) serving creatively nuanced traditional new-American fare. Eating makes us both so very happy. Then we dropped into an amazing supermarket in Manhattan called Fairway to pick up fresh sea scallops, some astounding French sheep's-milk cheese called P'tit Basque, baguette and olives for an antipasti dinner at home (pictured). Eating is so great, and Manhattan is a wonderful place for food. We really are so fortunate to be here.

A major highlight of the day (this is a little insight into our personalities), however, was after we got home from Ikea, where we picked up some dishes and glasses and cups for a dinner party we are hosting on Monday night, and were trying to work out how we could fit all this extra stuff into our modest cupboard space, when we suddenly realized we could use the dishwasher as storage (since we never use it). So, now that's where all our pots, pans, and Tupperware sit, making way for loads of wonderful shelving for our eclectic dinnerware. It's funny how excited we feel about that. Also we are excited about our new glasses and cups since it's more fun to drink orange juice and tea out of them. It really is the little things.