The beginning of Valentine's Day most likely started with the death of one of the three Saint Valentines that the Catholic Church recognizes.

One story tells that Saint Valentinus performed marriages for young lovers in secret against the wishes of Emperor Claudius II, who believed that single men made better soldiers than married ones. You could lose your head during this period if you crossed the Emperor.

Another Saint Valentine was put in jail for helping Christians escape jails of torture. It is believed that this Saint fell in love while imprisoned and sent a letter to his beloved signed "From your Valentine" before he was beheaded.

Perhaps the most interesting history is the Fertility Feast of Lupercal, for the Roman god of agriculture, Faunus. A feast that included a ritual sacrifice of dogs for purification and goats for fertility.

Strips of hide were then cut, soaked in blood, also called thongs, made of the newly sacrificed goat.

The hides were symbolically slapped on the crops, and the thongs were used by nearly naked men, lightly whipping any woman they could with them. According to legend, the women welcomed the touch of the thong, believing that fertility was heightened.

It was not unusual, after the festivities, for newly joined couples to fall in love and get married. Over time, the men became clothed, and the women were whipped on their hands, which sounds weirder than the previous way.

Letters and bloody thongs have been replaced over the thousand and a half years with cards, flowers, and chocolate.

And I expect the fertility thing is pretty diminished in the minds of the giver and receiver. In many places and cultures, finding a mate is not the focus of February 14th. Instead, it is about showing care for friends around us.

In my small world, it is all about chocolate. Giving and tasting new chocolate, whether it be bars of inspiration or cocoa in its purest form, St. Valentine's Day is all about chocolate.

What started as a thought about how chocolate and Valentine's Day evolved into how strange the origins are for the day.

The origins of the death of Saint Valentine bring us marriage, the expression of love, chocolate, and flowers.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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Shepherd's pie is one of those dishes that I love so much that I am constantly tweaking the recipe every time I make it to make it better.

It doesn't mean that the previous version, which was absolutely fabulous, was bad; it just means that the dish is an old friend, and we are constantly jiggling how we bond together.

From broad brush strokes to little pokes and dashes of this and that, helps to find our way, changes the taste, yet keeps the core the same.

It is the dish that I have had on my birthday for over 20 years now. It's simple like me, it's calming, it's home, it's friendly, it's fulfilling, and it's wonderful as a leftover.

What more could you want from a friendship that is virtually impossible to screw up? It is just plain right.

See the Shepherd's Pie Recipe here!

Chocolate is unique when it comes to taste and your taste buds.

My taste buds might tell me one thing, and I can share with hand waving, face gesturing, and the best words that I know to you.

Yet what I have come to realize with a number of impromptu taste sessions around the dining table is that my taste buds taste one thing and another's could be the same, identical, or completely and totally different. And that even changes from cocoa, chocolate, and even the maker.

How wildly interesting! Why is chocolate so unique in its flavor profile that it can be so different from one mouth to another?

Is it all in the taste receptacles? Or is the mind somehow involved? Or does texture play into it all?

In the end, the only way to know a chocolate is to taste.

Taste all the chocolate you can; life is so short when you count the number of different chocolates you could be trying!

Find your chocolate love....

See the whole lot of Chocolate here!

Cacao, cocoa nibs, unrefined cane sugar.

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Cocoa beans*, Raw cane sugar*, Cocoa butter* Freeze dried raspberries 1%*

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Cocoa beans, cane sugar, pure cocoa butter, citron, glucose and dextros.

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cacao, cacao butter, cane sugar - organically farmed ingredients.

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Organic cocoa, organic sugar, orange peels, cocoa butter.

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Organic cocoa beans, organic sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic spices, dried cherries (organic tart cherries, sunflower oil).

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Cocao beans, Organic sugar, Organic cocoa butter.

See the White Label Tranquilidad Heirloom Wild Bolivia 72-percent Chocolate Bar here!