We don’t make a big deal of Valentine’s Day, though we make cards for each other and exchanged little gifts (for me: chocolate caramel hearts; for Tony: a giant-cube ice tray to keep his evening whiskey cold; for the boys: chocolate lollipops). But I did want to make a special dessert, and with my heart-shaped cookie cutter, it didn’t take much effort to do this:

That’s one vanilla ice cream heart, and one heart each of ginger cake and vanilla pound cake (gifts for our New Year’s Day party that I’d stuck in the freezer for a day like this), plus a little puddle of chocolate sauce (I tried to make a heart, but the sauce resisted my decorative efforts.) Of the red sauce, Ben asked brightly, “Is that blood?” No, it’s raspberry sauce — nothing more than a pint of raspberries pureed in the blender, pushed through a sieve, and brightened with a squeeze of lemon juice. Eli said “This is the best dessert EVER!” and proved it: