This is the eight installment of "Eat This List" - a regularly recurring list of things chefs, farmers, writers, musicians, politicians and other smart people think you ought to know about. Today's contributor is hip hop star Jean Grae. Stay apprised of her many goings-on at JeanGrae.com and on Twitter @jeangreasy.

If you’re like me, you’re single.

Also, a bunch of other things, but that’s probably not best to get into right now.

So here you are. Standing outside the window of a fancy restaurant watching your ex have dinner with someone...NOT YOU.

It’s raining. The lighting inside of the restaurant is warm, amber, romantic. The tables are filled with couples whose torsos stretch gently over the candlelit tables in effort to be closer to each other, as they speak in hushed, soft tones.

You can hear them smile through the window.

You pull your trench coat tighter around your sweats and thin hoodie.

Is...? Oh no. Your ex pulls out a tiny jewelry box and starts to get out of his chair. His date gasps, brings her hand to her heart.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

On Valentine’s Day, the question isn’t whether you’re going to eat any chocolate; the question is how much? If you need something to strive for, the record for the world’s largest chocolate heart is waiting to be broken: It was set back in 2004 in Madrid, by the seven metric ton heart from Match.com.

But there are infinite kinds of chocolate to indulge in on this great holiday; you don’t need to confine yourself to hearts. The following is a gift guide for all kinds of chocolate lovers, from the pizza fanatics to the sports junkies to the very, very rich.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

Don’t worry if you haven’t booked your romantic Valentine’s Day dinner reservation yet. There are a gazillion restaurants doing lovely things for V-Day candlelit corner tables, red drinks galore, primal meat cuts for two, endless amounts of sexy foods.
 
If, however, you’re at the other end of spectrum, if you’re looking for a good place to say some variation of, “It’s not you, it’s me,” then the following list might come in handy. And remember, there’s always someone better out there.
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Editor's note: All summer long, the Southern Foodways Alliance will be delving deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. Dig in.

If there's one issue that divides barbecue fans more deeply than any other, it's the kind of sauce that should be served on the meat - if, indeed, a sauce is to be served on it at all. Though it inspires passionate argument, the colorful variety of regional sauces - peppery vinegar-based in eastern North Carolina, orange tomato-based in Kansas City, yellow mustard in South Carolina - is actually a rather recent phenomenon.
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Editor's note: All summer long, the Southern Foodways Alliance will be delving deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. Dig in.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered in this post to celebrate the union of love and barbecue.

With the summer wedding season in full swing, love is in the air - and it is increasingly followed by the perfume of burning wood and smoking meat. Once confined to the South, more and more wedding rehearsal dinners and receptions across the country feature a barbecue-laden feast. Recently, as I was leaving his son's wedding, a Colorado barbecue man - by way of Opelousas, Louisiana - gave me a parting gift of some alligator meat to smoke.
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Whether you're coupled-up for the long haul, feeling the first flush of love or rolling footloose and fancy-free, you've still gotta eat on February 14, right? Here's our best advice for satisfying appetites of all sorts.

Tales from the Trenches

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Once upon a time, I had a perfect romantic meal. It was ten years ago, but that doesn't much matter. The restaurant, by design, existed outside of time – mid-century French fanciness, untouched by fad or fashion. It seemed not outside the realm of possibility that the same tuxedoed waiters had been escorting the same fresh-faced and helium-bosomed young ladies (and their uncomfortably collared "uncles") to starched and sumptuous banquettes since the restaurant's opening in 1960, and that the maitre d' had air-kissed the same doyenne's surgically-taut cheek with the exact vim and deference he had since the year her Chanel suit was new.

It was Valentine's Day, and for a girl who frequently sported combat boots and a battle-scarred heart, this was as close to Hollywood l'amour as I'd ever gotten. In previous Februaries, I'd poured my heart into handmade cards, meticulously-chosen poetry volumes (and the occasional glass of single malt for myself), and had received, on various occasions a power drill, "I dunno - where do you wanna eat?", "Oh shoot...we're doing this?" and inevitably the bill for whatever entertainment ensued.
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Valerie Payne is a media producer at CNN

Food and sex make natural bedfellows, according to C. Nzingha Smith, author of "Lust-Have Recipes: IN-Gredients for Stimulation.” Her cookbook, co-written with caterer Melissa Roberts, is packed with sensual recipes, erotic poetry and sex tips inspired by real-life couples.

According to Smith, "Couples need to find different ways to arouse and turn each other on and translate that into the bedroom." Each recipe in the book contains some type of aphrodisiac ingredient, which she describes as "stimulation thought to arouse sexual excitement."
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Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray.

Ah, Valentine’s Day. If everything goes right, then you have a happy romantic night out with your loved one, and wake the following morning to songbirds chirping, the sun caressing you with buttery light, a suffusion of love in your heart, and no hangover at all. If things go wrong, then you get a night full of misery, anger, disappointment, shame, betrayal, and tears, but what did you expect? That's what dating is all about.

Here’s the deal, though: It didn’t have to be this way. I blame Pope Gelasius I. Back in 496, in a frenzy of popely goody-two-shoes-ness, Gelasius banned the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, when noble youths would run through the city naked, striking people they met with shaggy thongs made of goat-hide, and substituted Valentine’s Day in its place.

Go figure, right? I mean, come on. Which would you rather have, a city full of crazy naked youths running around smacking people with thongs, or a dopey card with a heart on it? Uh-huh. You got that right.

Be that as it may, Lupercalia is gone, Valentine’s Day is here, and no matter what your romantic situation is, you’re undoubtedly going to need a drink. Here are five suggestions to match some possible Valentine’s Day activities.

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If you must waffle on Valentine's Day, don't make it about who you're taking to dinner. The "where" is a lock: Waffle House.

WALB reports that some Waffle Houses across the chain's 15-state span are tossing tablecloths over the formica and chrome, dimming the lights, pouring alcohol-free sparkling drinks and emphasizing menu items like ribeye and eggs, porkchops or T-bones in addition to their perhaps better-known breakfast fare.
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