Family Ties

I just passed a very enjoyable evening with sister Dawn and her family, husband Ted, son Trevor, daughter Rachel, and son-in-law Rob. The original plan was for them to come over and play board games with us, but I thought dinner would be nice too. My dad complains that I cook too much "big city food" and I'll have to learn the hard way that people here don't like that kind of stuff. So, true to form, I made big city food, consisting of a dish called Quadrettini (a glorified sort of goulash made with the usual ingredients plus spinach, carrots and celery), and homemade basil garlic bread. It was a big hit, everybody going back for seconds and sometimes thirds. The bread is gone but for one end piece. I had intended to make pumpkin pie, but we drove past an Amish baked goods stand earlier in the day and I couldn't pass up the apple and raspberry pies, so we had those for dessert instead.

After dinner we broke out the games. Pictionary is always fun, considering none of us can draw worth a darn. Then we went on to Pit, a loud game of trading cards where Trevor (who appears to be shy and quiet - don't let him fool you!) beat the pants off all of us! Then on to Anybody's Guess (or something like that), a game of guessing the word in the fewest number of clues. About halfway through Pictionary Trevor suggested we have pie. Actually, it was more like, in a lull in the conversation we heard the word, "PIE!" So we broke for pie, went back to games, and Trevor got up and helped himself to more pie, and chocolates passed around... I feel like a swarm of locusts have hit my house! LOL Seriously, it was good to see Trevor eat, and to know that everybody liked what I served. Very gratifying, Dad.