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February is indeed a surprising month. It is always the shortest month of the year, but every four years, Leap Year occurs, and February has twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight. The poem, “February Again,” refers to the Marti Gras festival, that wild and self-indulgent party time that precedes the fifty days of prayer, fasting and abstinence of the Lenten Season prior to Easter. Last year, Mardi Gras took place on February 13, and in 2023, it was on February 21. However, this year, 2025, because Easter is not until April 20, Mardi Gras will not occur in February at all, but on March 4. But also in February this year, The Chinese Lunar New Year’s festival, celebrating the Year of the Snake, will conclude on February 2.

​​In short, every year when February arrives, we will need to check our calendars to figure out what will be happening in this unpredictable month, but Valentine’s Day always falls on February 14. A more contemporary event that now occurs every February is the Super Bowl, the National Football League’s grand championship. Since 2022, the Super Bowl has been held on the second Sunday of February, which this year is February 9, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Since the Super Bowl is not routinely held in the same location, you will also have to determine not just when, but where it will be held in future Februarys if you are interested in watching football.Another surprising aspect of February is the fact that it is often difficult to determine whether it is winter or spring when this fickle month arrives.

​​I’ve decided to give you some helpful hosting advice to guide you in navigating February’s various opportunities for festive gatherings, especially spring or winter Afternoon Tea Parties. Our blogs and website provide plenty of ideas and recipes. If you are thinking of hosting a Chinese style tea party to celebrate the Year of the Snake, “A Chinese Dim Sum Tea,” the first chapter of the World of Tea Parties section of The Tea Book, provides a helpful menu and recommends buying most of your food items from a reliable Chinese restaurant. Dim Sum Restaurants abound in Honolulu where I live, and there are probably good Chinese restaurants where you live too. If not, you can add a Chinese aura to any tea party or gathering by adding Tea Marbled Eggs to the savory menu. Eggs are eaten universally, and this version adds a haunting smoked tea and soy sauce nuance to simple boiled eggs. This elegant appetizer is included in our “Chinese Dim Sum Tea” menu, and I shared the easy recipe in my February 2020 blog, “A Chinese New Year Tea.”

​Of course, you will also want to do something special for Valentine’s Day to express your lasting affection for your True Love and all your friends and family. Kathleen is our go-to expert on all things related to Valentine’s Day. She makes beautiful hand-crafted Valentine cards and creates heartwarming photographs that evoke the sweetness and beauty of this special holiday. Kathleen is responsible for the menu, recipes and photographs that comprise our “February: Valentine’s Day Tea” in the Calendar section of The Tea Book.
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She has included a delightful variety of colorful and lovely red, white and pink cookies, sweets and dazzling Valentine’s Day dinner desserts. As always, she offers easy to create treats for novice cooks and gourmet masterpieces for advanced home chefs. Some of these options include, Pink Stack Bars, Cherry Coconut Pom Pons, Chocolate Heart Sandwich Cookies with Sour Cherry Filling, Strawberry Charlotte and Battenberg Cake.

This haiku describes Kathleen’s stunning Strawberry Charlotte, a centerpiece dessert comprised of the ingredients described above arranged as a circular cake surrounded by delicate lady fingers set on end like an edible picket fence held together by a bow-tied red silk ribbon. Battenberg Cake is another of my favorite gourmet Valentine’s Day desserts. Anyone who receives this cake, no matter what day it is, will know that he or she is loved! This historic tour de force was created in 1884 to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria to Prince Louis of Battenberg, Germany. One of the prettiest cakes imaginable, this rectangular masterpiece is designed as a checkerboard of pink and white squares topped with a luscious layer of delicately decorated marzipan icing. Though Battenberg Cake is not difficult to make, it does take time and careful attention to detail. Isn’t donating hours of our time and creative energy to completing something ephemeral yet spectacular the ultimate expression of love?

In addition to the Valentine’s Day menu on our website, Kathleen added chocolate to our Valentine’s Day offerings in her February 2023 blog: “Love and Chocolate.” In this intriguing culinary adventure, Kathleen shows us how to create Layered White Chocolate Cherry Desserts, AKA, Fudge Buttons. This romantic invention is composed of four separate recipes, all of which you will want to keep in your files, as they can be combined to construct heart-shaped Fudge Buttons for your loved ones or used individually in a wide variety of luscious chocolate treats. These recipes are:

                  Simple White Chocolate Fudge
Chocolate Pie Crust
Ghirardelli Brownie Half Recipe
Basic Powdered Sugar Glaze.
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​My most faithful readers (you know who you are, Marny and Merlina,) might remember that I recommended using Kathleen’s Chocolate Pie Crust in my Christmas blog two months ago to create Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake, which I made as the family Christmas Day dessert just last year, and it was a huge hit! I may have to make it again next year, and you might want to make it this year for Valentine’s Day. I am also fond of Kathleen’s Simple White Chocolate Fudge recipe, (which contains dried or maraschino cherries,) as it is one of the easiest recipes of all time and is perfect every time you make it. Those of you who think you can’t cook can easily make this pretty, red and white Fudge for Valentine’s Day because it requires no cooking at all, only the ability to push the button on your microwave. The other thing I love about Kathleen’s White Chocolate Cherry Fudge is that it is good for many days, so you can make it whenever you have the time, and it can be cut into one-inch squares and wrapped decoratively to make little individual sweet treats for your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers as a little Valentine’s Day reminder that you love them too. And as for the Ghirardelli Brownie half Recipe, we have all been in a bind from time to time when a small batch of quick and perfect brownies would solve the problem, like forgetting that it is Valentine’s Day!

Kathleen’s wonderful Brownie recipe can also be doubled for a larger crowd, like those of you who will be watching the Super Bowl on February 9 this year. I’m guessing that not all of our readers are football fans, but many of you live with people or have family members who are. Watching football is definitely a group activity, and the Tailgate Party has become an American social fixture. Most football viewing, however, takes place at home in front of the television set, not in the football arena where fans can park their trucks in the parking lot and enjoy all kinds of hearty snacks before the game begins. I don’t believe that viewing sports or any kind of informal gathering with friends has to include junk food. For your February fun time with friends, I am recommending a fabulous recipe for White Chili which I have made numerous times and kept in my files since 1989! I am contributing this gem to Kathleen’s soup recipe collection which she introduced in her January blog last month: “SOUP: Let’s Gather Our Favorite Recipes.”

As I share this splendud White Bean Chili recipe with you, I am thinking that if you do end up with a larger than usual number of guests this February, all of the foods I have recommended so far could be combined into a satisfying winter/spring menu doubled or tripled as follows:

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​Winter/Spring Menu for a CrowdTea Marbled Eggs
South African Corn Bread (Rose’s August 2017 blog)
Nieman Marcus White Chili
White Chocolate Cherry Fudge
Ghirardelli Brownies
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​Many years ago, I enjoyed a very special lunch with friends at the high-end café connected to the Nieman Marcus department store in San Francisco. I ordered the White Chili, a memorable mélange of white beans, mild green chilis, a subtle combination of savory spices and small pieces of white chicken breast, all topped with California Monterey Jack cheese. I was so taken by this hearty and unusually flavorful soup that I mentioned to the hostess of the restaurant how much I appreciated it. To my surprise, she immediately offered to send me the recipe, and it soon arrived at my home, hand signed, “4-11-89 Bon Appetit!” along with a gold sticker with the Neiman Marcus logo. This recipe makes an unusually large amount of bean soup. If I interpret the number 24 at the top of the recipe correctly, it makes two dozen ¾ cup servings of 195 calories each. I have always reduced the measurements for all of the ingredients in this recipe, but I find it comforting to know that I could serve a crowd if necessary and make them all very happy.
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You will note that the recipe calls for more than two quarts of cooked, diced chicken breast. I’m not sure that much chicken is necessary, and I recommend buying one or two fully cooked rotisserie chickens at the grocery store and cutting the meat up by hand. You could also omit the chicken and just throw a ham hock into the pot for additional flavor as you cook the beans. As a third option, you could eliminate the meat and rely on the chicken stock and Monterey Jack Cheese for flavor and protein. I believe that White Bean Soup and Corn Bread create a classic comfort food combination of balanced protein and nutrients. I think this bean soup would be perfect with the South African Cornbread featured in my August 2017 blog: “A South African Sojourn.” This corn bread variation includes whole kernel corn as well as corn meal, for a fresh, slightly sweet flavor and texture.

 

• 3 pounds (6 cups) large dry white beans
• 1 gallon chicken broth
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• 6 round white onions, peeled and chopped
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 ½ teaspoons salt
• 3 (4-ounce) cans chopped green California chilis (Ortega brand)
• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 3 tablespoons dried oregano, crushed
• 2 tablespoons coriander
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 quarts (8 cups) cooked, diced chicken breast
• 3 cups (12 ounces) grated Monterey Jack Cheese
• 24 chopped green onions for garnish

​South African Corn Bread to serve with the White Chili (Rose’s August, 2017 blog)
Makes: 24 servings (can be reduced by half for 12 servings)
Special Equipment: kitchen knife, cutting board, large, covered stockpot, skillet, heat-proof spatula, ladle, bowls for serving

1. Combine the beans, chicken stock, 3 onions, 8 garlic cloves and salt in a large stock pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 1 ½ -2 hours or until the beans are very tender, adding more chicken broth as needed.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet. Add the remaining 3 chopped onions and cook, stirring until tender and clear, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped green chilis and the herbs and spices and stir with a heat-proof spatula. Cook, stirring for an additional 20 minutes.
3. Add the mixture from the skillet into the beans and stir thoroughly. Measure the cooked, chopped chicken into 2-ounce portions. Place one serving into the bottom of each of the bowls. Ladle approximately ¾ cup of White Chili over the chicken in each of the bowls.
4. Garnish each bowl with 2 tablespoons of grated Monterey Jack Cheese and a sprinkling of chopped green onions. Serve immediately. Refrigerate leftover chili, chicken and cheese.