With Valentine’s Day around the corner, let me share a short story of food, relationships, and how they all relate—with a fabulous recipe at the end.

I have a friend who dated a guy who liked to cook. The highlight of his culinary repertoire? Creamy sauces made in the French style. This included béchamel, mousseline, beurre blanc, and bearnaise sauce—and these sauces covered everything he cooked, from fish to steak, to eggs, and the little vegetables he ate.

The food covered in sauce also covered his not-so-good personality and pretentious taste in food, which was really a reflection of other pretenses in his life—but let’s save that for another column. This fellow fell under the category of people who think food has to be complicated, reflect a labor of love, or impress people (again, covering up a lot of things).