Retro-style “Diamonds and Coal” from The Herald’s issue on Feb 14, 2003:

“Neither a diamond nor coal to Valentine’s Day. No bitterness here. Nope, not one bit.”

Can’t get enough D&C? Read slightly more current incarnations in today’s Herald, or submit your own at www.DiamondsandCoal.com!

You don't know it now, but those vanilla leeks are about to blow your freakin' mind.

The identity of the classic American restaurant could well be the topic of its own AmCiv seminar. Most of us have pretty similar mental images of the Classic French Brasserie or the Classic Italian Trattoria or the Classic Mexican Taqueria, but that all kind of falls apart when it comes to American cuisine. The most obvious answers are also the most grim — McDonald’s? Applebee’s? — but it is my greatest hope that, were we to push past such folly, we’d pinpoint something a lot like New Rivers, whose locally stocked kitchen, “melting pot” of influences, and no-nonsense approach are a whole ‘nother breed of all-American.

New Rivers doesn’t look like much from the outside; in fact, you’ve probably unwittingly passed it plenty of times (it’s in a nondescript brick building off South Main Street near where Angell becomes Steeple). But the inside feels like your favorite aunt’s country house: cozy, simple furniture, fairy lights, randomly placed vases of fresh flowers. It helps that, in lieu of one gaping warehouse of a dining room, there are two smaller rooms, so the noise level doesn’t really get out of hand. All these factors alone make it an excellent candidate for February 14, whether you’re participating in Valentine’s Day or Singles’ Appreciation Day. The lowdown on the food, after the jump.

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Good news for all you romantics out there! The New York Times is hosting its second Modern Love college essay contest, which means it wants to give you $1000 big ones for your take on what the four-letter-word means to our generation. The editor of the column had this to say about the last contest, in 2008:

When the contest deadline passed seven weeks later, more than 1,200 essays had arrived, from 365 schools in 46 states and Puerto Rico. In perhaps typical collegiate fashion, nearly 700 poured in on the last day, 400 over the final hour. [Read more →]

Whether you love it, hate it, or don’t really care, today is Valentine’s Day. Is there anything that goes better with a little red wine (or, um, cranberry juice), chocolate, roses, tears of joy or tears of despair than a playlist of music that suits your mood? We didn’t think so. Full playlists after the jump.

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President Ruth Simmons has certainly been out and about on campus a lot this week.

To start off, her face has been plastered around campus on Brown Women’s Rugby Football Club flyers, advertising $2 raffle tickets through Friday to win a one-hour lunch with the president. For those without even $2 to spare, attendance at an entire team practice will suffice.

But even that price might be too steep for those residents of Barbour Hall that got to hang out with President Simmons for free, when she showed up as a surprise guest to the 2nd Barbour Family Style Potluck Feb. 8. Barbour’s Community Assistants invited the president to the first potluck last semester, but she was unable to come, Victoria Chen ’11, one of the CAs, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. President Simmons stayed at the potluck for about half an hour, chatting with students about — what else? — the upcoming Super Bowl.

But while she has appeared on posters around campus and in residence halls, there is one place where President Simmons doesn’t seem to be on students’ minds. Despite rumors that students were listing the president as a crush, not a single e-mail from Prospect & Meeting, Brown’s new dating site, has been sent to either of President Simmons’ two Brown e-mail addresses, Assistant to the President Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar ’87 MA’90 PhD’09 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald (though she added that they may have been caught by a spam filter).

“Maybe everyone is just TALKING about putting her down as a prospect!” Rodriguez-Farrar wrote.

— Nicole Friedman

On Valentine’s Day, one normally hopes to be eating dinner in a chic Thayer restaurant across from that significant other. But for the most of us, a good-ol dinn at the Ratty will suffice for the 14th. And let’s be honest, what’s sweeter—candies and cards or Gail’s smile? Exactly.

So what does Gail think of this Hallmark Holiday? Adorable? Overrated?

“I think [Valentine's Day] gives you a reason to be a little whimsical and put a little ‘zing’ into your relationship.”

Gail, who thinks of Cupid’s Day as a “nice” holiday, appreciates flowers above all other Valentine’s Day gifts. But, Gail is not one to be preoccupied with how many flowers are lavished on her.

“It’s still about giving rather than receiving.”

So, next time you are alone on Valentine’s and wonder when Cupid’s arrow will strike your heart,keep Gail’s words in mind and shoot out an arrow yourself. A smile back to Gail is always a good start. Happy Valentine’s Day!

—Ana Alvarez

Felipe Umana ’11

Well ,Valentine’s Day to me is pretty much like any other day. I don’t know – I don’t really think of it as a holiday necessarily. Not really in a relationship, don’t really eat a lot of candies…

Jocelyn Bell ’12

I’m actually a big fan of Valentine’s Day, because at home whenever it comes up my dad always buys my mom, my sister and I a flower and gets us candy and gives us a card and just tells us how much he loves us. And he like taught my little brother and my older brother to do the same thing so they always do that for us too. So – I don’t know – it was never really a romantic sort of holiday for me because I never really celebrate it with a boyfriend or anything. It was always a family sort of event … for the guys to tell the girls how much they love them. I really miss it while I’m here, because I want to be home and have that sort of celebration.

Alex Ilstad-Minnihan ’13

I guess I didn’t used to like it – or I didn’t have any thoughts on it – but this is my first one with a boyfriend, so it’ll be interesting. I don’t know – maybe that’ll make it more exciting, maybe it won’t. I guess we’ll see.

Nathanael Lee ’10

It’s like every other day for me, just like my birthday, just like any holiday. There’s just work, and I go about the day normally.

<3

— Hannah Moser

Feel the love with the new cereal canisters, aglow with pink romance in time for Valentine’s Day.