Making a wish at a fountain
When we returned home from China three years ago, our boys met each other for the first time.
We hadn’t seen Leo in two weeks, and we were very emotional as we introduced our two sons. Leo was already tucked into bed for the night, but we had a very jet-lagged toddler on our hands. We wouldn’t be sleeping for hours…or days…or months.
So we pulled Leo out of bed and took the boys downstairs to play.
We haven’t done much to celebrate the anniversary of that day in the past, but this year our boys latched onto the idea of marking Brothers Day.
Then Leo came to me with a question: “Can we make dumplings today?”
Making dumplings is so much fun. But you have to knead the dough for 20-25 minutes before assembling the dumplings. And I had none of the ingredients for the filling. Hmm.
I had also already committed to making chocolate chip cookies with Daniel, pepper and egg sandwiches for John, and chicken pot pie for dinner. I like to cook, but I wasn’t looking for extra labor on Labor Day.
So I told Leo and Daniel I would make extra crust for the pot pie and they could make “dumplings” out of the pie dough.
“OK,” said Leo, reaching for every child’s favorite kitchen utensil, the rolling pin. “What will we put inside?”
What, indeed?
We scoured the kitchen and found:
– Chocolate chips
– Nutella
– Cheese
– Ham
– Pepperoni
The brothers set to work.
I was distracted as I focused on making my chicken pot pie, so I wasn’t supervising very closely. But I did notice they were surprisingly agreeable about sharing the dumpling maker I ordered a couple months ago.
Of course, part of the reason they were cooperating so well was because they were creating their own concoctions–blending cheese with chocolate chips, for example.
Then we baked the brothers’ dumplings, which, of course, aren’t dumplings at all.
Some of them tasted good, and others…well…not quite so good.
But the brothers, these two boys who are so different in so many ways and yet such a fantastic match as siblings and a perfect fit for our family, had a great time rolling out some memories.
And the chicken pot pie was delicious.
We may have a new Brothers Day tradition on our hands. But that will be up to the brothers to decide.
I can’t (and wouldn’t) provide the brothers’ recipe, but I will say the chicken pot pie was delicious. I used this recipe but I substituted this homemade pie crust.