[I asked Bennett to explain the reference in this post.]

“Monti” (not sure of the spelling) is an Armenian dish that is made with a ground lamb mixture with parsley and onion, small balls baked with a pasta “cover” – open at the tops. Basically, an Armenian ravioli.

Served in a beef broth with a shake of hot sauce in it. A small bowl on the side of lemon, yogurt and parsley is used as a dipping sauce.

Kids wanted this for Thanksgiving dinner one year.

Bennett responding. [via Facebook]

The regular bananas at Publix looked terrible, so for 10 cents per pound extra, Kathy bought these organic bananas. They have a band around them that says organic. They also have a plastic wrap cap. Kathy thinks this is so people don’t mix some organic bananas in with some of those inorganic bananas.

Kelly eats peas out of the dishwasher. I caught her. Thought I should tell someone.

Danny is fond of pointing out his mother’s brown belly button to Nicole. Kathy thinks this is funny. She thinks a lot of things are funny. It is good that she can laugh carrying around the kid-to-be.

Last night the kids played baseball out in the street until it was getting dark. Doug was the coach of this big get together.

Tonight we cashed in Danny’s birthday certificate at the frozen custard shop. He got a cup of chocolate custard. When given a menu of any number of flavors, he inevitably chooses chocolate.

Tonight Kathy had to work. I picked up her and the kids about 4 pm to get the Toyota that had left Kathy stranded in the Big B parking lot the day before.

With Kathy safely off to work, I took the kids with me to get a haircut in time for my presentation to Tom Hidell. Trying to get a new job (or get the one I’m doing officialized.)

Danny was poking through dinner as usual, when his interest was peeked by Nicole and my discussion about dessert. Nicole asked if we still had some of the Valentine’s fudge in the refrigerator. No ice cream to put it on, I replied.

That’s when Danny suggested we eat fudge and bananas like he had done in school. (Kathy’s fudge had never solidified, so it was good for pouring on things.)

We decided to have a fondue with the bananas.

“The bananas have black holes in them,” Danny said with concern.

I looked and saw black spots, thinking he must be worried about them being too ripe. Funny he would call spots holes. “Looks like they’ll be just perfect,” I said.

So Danny hurried with his dinner, as Nicole and I got up to prepare the banana-fudge fondu. I peeled the banana and saw that it looked good, but noticed that there were a few black spots on the inside of the peel. Strange. On closer inspection, I found narrow holes in the banana that corresponded with the black spots. In fact, the holes were black! The banana was fine otherwise. Bugs? Bacteria?

Danny was eating faster and faster. I thought of the famous sliced-banana-in-a-peel trick that is done with a needle and thread.

“Danny, did you poke a toothpick in the banana?”

“Yes,” he confessed quietly, chewing as fast as possible.

Nicole found it difficult to contain her laughter. So did I.

Thinking that he would have no reason for this, I thought maybe he and Kathy had been doing some kind of educational experiment.

“Does Mom know you poked holes in the banana?”

“No,” he said, running out of food to hide behind.

Nicole lost it, and had to be sent from the room.

I thanked Danny for telling the truth. Then I asked him if he had a reason for poking holes in the banana, but he had none that he could recall. So I asked him not to poke holes in our food.

I sliced up the banana, heated up a small bowl of the Valentine’s fudge, broke out the toothpicks, and we had a terrific fondue. So good, in fact, that I sliced up a second banana, which had no black holes in it.

We did not go to Mom’s for Valentine’s dinner. Pregnancy and mother-in-laws do not always mix well, I’m afraid.

The four of us had a very nice formal dinner in our own home that hasn’t sold yet.

Saturday night we all went over to Mom and Dad’s for steak. Nicole wanted to bring ketchup, much to Kathy’s chagrin.

Kathy and the kids met me at Harland at 5 pm. They brought a picnic and some clothes for me to change into. It was the nicest day of spring so far, so we drove out to the monastery in Conyers for a picnic dinner by the lake.

Several geese, ducks, and squirrels greeted us. Otherwise it was very quiet. The ducks actually jumped up on the backs of the picnic table benches to investigate what kind of goodies we had. Both Danny and Nicole fed them multi-grain crackers.

They didn’t like potato salad.

Kathy came within 3 inches of having a squirrel take a cracker from her hand. But the greedy ducks frightened him away.