Late winter in New York City is a particularly unromantic time of year. Everyone's gone without a vacation for too long. Everyone's been cold for too long. We start to come undone around the edges. We start to get mean. And you can bet that this toxic energy follows us onto the F train and into our tiny apartments, where we promptly share it with our poor partners.
To get out of this winter rut, there are the obvious solutions: Get out of town together, go out for a nice dinner, visit a museum or see a film or go to a goddamn botanical garden.
But what about when you're both working round the clock, not to mention, on a strict wedding savings budget?
My fiancé called me a few weeks ago sounding all kinds of down in the dumps: He had to work late, he was worried about his company's recent acquisition, his back was killing him. Rather than let winter get the best of us again (translation, order takeout and turn to Netflix), I had a revelation: I was going to do that thing that New Yorkers rarely do. I was going to cook. And I was going to make it fancy, dammit.