Many threads have woven through history to shape the Valentine’s Day we celebrate today into admittedly a rather commercial holiday. But it’s been industrialized since the mid-1800s when an enterprising Boston artist, Esther Howland, picked up on the popularity amongst wealthy Europeans of exchanging intricately designed Valentine’s cards. Ms. Howland started the first Valentine’s Day card company in the United States, handcrafting cards with ribbons and paper lace imported from England.

Vineyard home cook Charlie Cameron enjoys a laissez-faire approach to cooking. He grew up with parents who went to France on their honeymoon in the 1950s, and stayed for two years. They were “serious foodies,” he explained, who passed their love for cooking on to him. While at Vassar College in the 80s, Mr. Cameron dropped out for a year and a half, because he just wanted to cook for a while.

“I’d heard about this place on Martha’s Vineyard called The Black Dog, where they’d train you to cook,” he said.