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Valentine’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, which makes breakfast in bed an attractive opportunity to set the day’s course.

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Because breakfast in bed is probably not the focus of your day, you don’t need to exhaust yourself with an over-the-top presentation. The very notion that you’ve made the gesture is significant. In fact, the ratio of level-of-effort to points-you-score is sharply skewed in favor of points. Of course, on Valentine’s Day, rising expectations tend to drive point values lower, but if you repeat this little gesture at random times throughout the year, you can score big. Do it when you have a sick Valentine in bed with a cold, and you can earn premium points with no expiration date.

The trick to making breakfast in bed is serve it before your Valentine gets out of bed, without having to tell him/her, “Hey, get back in bed, because I’m making you breakfast in bed.” That’s how they do it in coach. In first class, you sneak out of bed, make breakfast quickly and noiselessly, and slip back in before you’ve been gone too long. Even if it’s just a cup of coffee and a croissant that you’ve brought into the bedroom, the very gesture says, “The first thing I thought about today was making you feel special.”

There are some charming ways to approach breakfast in bed that require hardly any more effort than making a bowl of kasha. Some might be more involved – but for those, you can choose recipes that let you do almost all the work the day before.

Click here to see some breakfast in bed ideas and find links to their recipes.