There's real angel hair in that bowl.

Recently, 1100 high school kids were polled asking what is the most important ingredient to success in life. The poll came back with 84% thinking that family relationships were the key to future success. So what can we do to try to reach the pinnacle of family oneness?  It starts with a fact I learned last night. Did you know that the Greek nation Anthem has 158 verses? I learned this as we sat down and shared dinner together. The dinner table is a place where the minds meet and things get figured out. It has been proven in this house that the food doesn't even need to be very good to have a good conversation, although it does help to keep everyone at the table longer. Last night over a hearty bowl of pasta, my husband informed Peter's friend, "Did you know that this pasta was made from real angel's hair? They sweep it off the ground at the angel barber shop." All of the kids start cracking up. The conversation keeps swirling. Peter then suggest that people with peanut allergies should stay away from dynamite because of the fact that one of dynamites ingredients is peanuts. Fascinated, I asked how he knew that and he tells me he read about it in a book of list. Kate then peeps into the conversation, "You can cage a swallow, can't you, but you can't swallow a cage, can you?" Apparently this book had many palindromes to add to our conversation. I am never surprised when Kate comes out with interesting stuff because she reads so much, that her mind is chock full  information. Dinner is long gone and the kids make funny faces at each other and giggle. They finish by taking their last sip of milk and try to get away with wiping their face on their sleeve, before Chris catches them in action. The bowls get thrown into the sink and they are off. Chris and I chat about the grown up stuff and then he is off to prep his bike for next the next morning's commute. So what just happened here? We filled up the tank, but we also filled up our glass of happiness. Where the glass may have been half empty before dinner, it is now half full. We have gathered our ingredients for what comes tomorrow simply by being together. Maybe that poll is right and I go upstairs with my mind full of palindromes. "Oh no, Don Ho!", I think to myself, it's time to go to bed.

The man behind the best dinner table conversations.