Gone are the days when simply saying ‘I Love You’ with a homemade card and a bunch of posies from the yard will do. Those were the old days; before marketing.

Valentine’s Day is one of those very special days when the marketing people hope your sweetheart will equate the most expensive, lace laden, love song playing, Valentine’s Day card with the depth of your love. I’m sure that some un-scientific survey will verify that if you add a huge teddy bear and some fine chocolates, the ‘feel good’ effect will last until St. Patrick’s Day when you will once again have to start proving your love by whipping up a dinner of corned beef and cabbage in a romantic setting of imported beer and dandelions..

Oh yes, the flowers; for the slow to catch on, roses aren’t always that expensive.

Some will say it’s the little things like making your sweetheart a special cup of coffee while she ponders all the expensive things you could have bought. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a double steamed whole milk mocha macchiato poured over a heart shaped ice float with cherries for the aorta. Or just take your love out of the house which means that you care enough to get in the car and drive her somewhere.

The timing of Valentine’s Day in the middle of February couldn’t have been better. Almost everyone who has made a new years resolution to lose weight and exercise has either forgotten those vows or has lost just enough to splurge on candy and other sweets.

So let’s talk about chocolate, which is synonymous with how sweet you really are. The equation seems to be that more expensive chocolate means more love, so that a Hershey’s Kiss is to the finest chocolate what a Kia Rio is to a Bugatti Veyron.

Let’s see ‘How Deep is Your Love’ starting with a high end Godiva ‘G’ collection consisting of Palet d’Or, Tasmanian Honey and Mexican Hot Chocolate made of premium cocoa beans. Not bad at $117 a pound.

Let’s move on to a true declaration of your glittering love with a Delafee brand chocolate made from fine cocoa beans and flakes of edible 24-karat gold applied by hand to each praline at a cost of about $500 per pound.

A tremendous avowal of the Love of a life-time would be the Noka Vintages Collection which is black special chocolate from plantations in Venezuela, Ivory Coast, Trinidad and Ecuador. It is made from 75 percent pure cacao with other mixtures such as cocoa butter and sugar. $854 per 450 gram (Just about a pound)

Here comes undying everlasting love and affection no matter what. Knipschildt Chocolatier produces, on order only, a dark chocolate truffle with a French black truffle inside. Made of 70% Valrhona cacao, it is blended into a creamy ganache with truffle oil. It is then hand rolled and dusted with cocoa powder. One can visualize them wearing kitchen white tuxedos. Each truffle costs about $250 with the price per pound of $2600!!

Aren’t you glad it comes around only once a year?