For the average person, celebrating Valentine's Day--the day of seduction, flowers, dinner and poetry--may seem like mission impossible, unless there is a serious chef behind the stove.
Yahoo Foods caught up with a few of America's favorite chefs to find out what meals they served to seal the deal with their mates.
For chef Bobby Flay and his wife, Stephanie, a Valentine's Day consist of only two things: oysters and fried chicken. Flay said his wife is from Texas and loves both chicken and oysters.
"To me that's the classic oyster," said Flay. "Some people say oysters are aphrodisiacs--I always say the foods that are aphrodisiacs are the ones that you want to be aphrodisiacs."
Chef Michael Symon and his wife, Liz, met in 1990, when he moved to Cleveland. He worked as a cook at Players, where Liz was an assistant wine director. After being friends for three years, Michael invited her over for dinner and the rest is history.
"It was a really cold night, and I had a ripping fire going," he said. "I did crab and lobster in the shell with artichokes, all poached in a truffle butter bouillon. Back in those times, I was really poor, so a $20-$30 truffle was a big investment. We sat in front of the fire and ate it with our hands. There's something incredibly romantic about food that is eaten with your hands. And what man doesn't want to see a beautiful woman with truffle butter dripping down her chin?"
On their first date, in 2007, Chef Cindy Pawlcyn said her now-husband John Watanabe offered to cook for her. It was a surprise to the chef, who said "nobody cooks for me!" Watanabe made picnic bento box.
On their second, Pawlcyn took the lead in the kitchen and made an experimental dish she had been "playing around with" for a supper club series at Backstreet Kitchen.
"It was a Kerala curry salmon dish, from the Spice Coast of India," she says. "There's cumin, coriander, mustard seed and cayenne on the fish, and then a wonderful coconut milk broth underneath, with steamed basmati. He took one bite and said 'This is the best thing I ever ate.' I think that did it--we got engaged about three weeks later."
In February 2004, Pierre Gagnaire revealed to Yahoo that he "seduced" his wife, Sylvie, when she visited his restaurant Sketch in London.
"There is no such thing as 'aphrodisiac' food," he said, "but she keeps on telling me that the lobster she had that night was the best she had ever had. I cooked her dish as usual... I did not know that my future wife was going to eat it. But I would not have changed anything to this lobster with boiled potatoes and brown butter, because it is now part of our story. I have changed the recipe so that she has nothing to compare it with! She doesn't like desserts but we shared a fruit salad that night with a glass of vodka."
Mary Sue Milliken's husband of 30 years, Josh Schweitzer, used to her business partner, chef Susan Feniger's husband. Milliken revealed that she and Schweitzer were set up by Feniger.
"We all planned a visit out to Desert Hot Springs, four women and Josh," Milliken explained. "It was Easter weekend, so we made a big leg of lamb stuffed with herbs and rubbed with garlic, asparagus, and little baked potatoes. It wasn't something I was actively pursuing, although I was attracted to him. I was trying to be nonchalant. But the next morning he asked me to take a shower with him, so I guess he liked it!"
