After nearly nine years of marriage, Valerie Bertinelli and Tom Vitale know how to keep the romance alive. Turns out the lovebirds keep things fresh by spending their “date nights” on a special island — the kitchen island!

Instead of going out to a fancy or extravagant dinner, “we just turn the music on, open a bottle of wine and cook together,” the 59-year-old revealed to Parade this past February. “It’s really a great deal of fun.”

Tom Vitale and Wife Valerie Bertinelli
Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

Having begun a relationship back in 2004, the One Day at a Time star and Tom tied the knot on January 1, 2011. She and the financial planner have built a happy life for themselves in the years since. While they have had no children together, Valerie shares her 28-year-old son, Wolfgang Van Halen, with ex-husband Eddie Van Halen. Tom also has four kids.

Valerie’s love for food — something she shares with Tom — that has led her to her new, Emmy-winning career. In addition to helming Valerie’s Home Cooking (now in its 10th season), she also hosts three competition shows on Food Network. Given this fact, the Touched by an Angel alum knows how to throw the best Thanksgiving, one focused on the family and friends with the added bonus of delicious food.

“It’s more about coming together to share conversation than it is about consuming a meal,” she wrote in the 2017 companion cookbook to her self-titled series.

That said, Valerie knows people have a hankering for good food too. The Hot in Cleveland actress told Closer Weekly in January 2018 that “being in the kitchen is like home” for her because “I’m the boss and I call the shots.” As for the thing she likes to cook the most, that would be the seasonal treat that pleases everyone: pumpkin pie.

“I have been making pumpkin pie ever since I left home to live on my own,” she wrote in the her 2012 cookbook One Dish at a Time. “It’s always on my Thanksgiving table, but I tend to make it through the fall and winter when cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves are the spices I crave.”

Hey, Valerie, how do we get an invite?!

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Valerie Bertinelli on the cover of 'Closer Weekly'
Closer Weekly