Raspberry Linzer Cookie Recipe for Valentine’s

Raspberry Linzer Cookie Recipe – Valentine’s Day Recipes Ideas – Valentine’s Gift Ideas

A few weeks ago as I was scratching my head thinking about what — if anything — I can create and share on this blog for Valentine’s Day, I glanced out the window to see the first snowfall of the season.

And to say the forecast for that first snow was … umm … apocalyptic would not be an understatement. It was hair on fire apocalyptic. It was dispatch every last salt truck in Chicago apocalyptic. It was get my car in the garage ASAP before it’s buried in a foot of snow apocalyptic.

Thankfully all the hair-on-fire-dispatch-the-salt-trucks-get-the-car-in-the-garage-apocalyptic predictions were wrong.

But the falling snow reminded me of Mike’s (my husband’s) big romantic Valentine’s Day gesture.

It wasn’t for me. Or to me? Or about me?

Whichever. Or whatever. All I know is it didn’t involve me. But Mike’s former girlfriend.

Oh, and to clarify, all this happened a few years before Mike and I even met.

Mike’s epic Valentine’s Day grand gesture took place on Valentine’s Day 1990. To set the stage, according to Chicago weatherman legend Tom Skilling,

“It was a heartbreaker. Valentine’s Day 1990 left a legacy of undelivered flowers and canceled romantic dinners as a major snowstorm brought Chicago to a standstill. Snow began falling early in the afternoon and quickly became heavy with visibilities dropping to near zero. The storm reached peak intensity during the evening rush hour as strong northeast winds gusting to more than 30 m.p.h. piled the heavy snow into huge drifts.”

And Mike was out there in that zero visibility evening rush hour, bracing himself against those 30 m.p.h. winds, trudging through those huge snow drifts, all while clutching a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

He and his girlfriend had been broken up. Yet during this 100% undeniable apocalyptic snowstorm he was overtaken by love?

Nostalgia?

Insanity?!?!

Whatever the motivation, on that apocalyptic snowy Valentine’s Day night he decided to pay a visit to his ex-girlfriend to hand deliver a bouquet of flowers.

And after his epic trip by foot through snowdrifts and 30 m.p.h. wind and zero visibility, he arrived at her apartment building just as she was walking out the door …

with another man.

Sigh.

And there stood Mike with icicles hanging from his Mike Ditka mustache (I added that for embellishment) clutching what could only be a sad, frozen bouquet of flowers.

It was awkward. For Mike. For the ex-girlfriend. For the new guy (who Mike knew). And especially for the doorman (who knew Mike).

The look of sympathy from the doorman was the final stake through the heart. 😉

Thankfully Mike survived. Both the snowstorm and the heartache. And exactly three years later to the day he was in New York with me. Not in a snowstorm …

but on his first ever trip to New York.

And since it was Valentine’s Day weekend, I did make him heart-shaped Raspberry Linzer Cookies. Using this very same recipe handed down from my sister Janet’s MIL …

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P.S. Here’s Mike and I on our first Valentine’s Day together during his first-ever New York visit, dining at Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Grill restaurant.

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