My husband and I were on the way to my brother’s house for dinner when we decided that eating there and being there with my brother was the best “date night” experience we had.
The food was the best. The service was the best. The wine is the best. And the stories?
Last time we were there my brother told us the story about how when he was a little boy he would go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of “American bread” (American bread being what my born-in-Italy mother called all bread that wasn’t Italian bread), a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly and take it home to his bedroom and put it under his covers.
That way he said, in his little boy mind, if he ever got stranded on a desert island, he would have everything he needed.
What a story. So much in it to love. So much in it to make you want to get right up from where you are sitting behind your glass of wine and go right over and kiss the little boy that still lives in that 64-year-old man right on the top of his head.
“Peanut butter and jelly. Everything a little boy would need if he ever got stranded on a desert island.”
My brother went over to the stove, picked up the big pot of boiling water, threw the pasta and brought over to the table a huge bowl of rotini swimming in fish broth.
Three forks.
No separate plates.
We all ate out of the big red bowl in the center of the table, the soft and pillowly pasta floating so perfectly there.
“Where did you get this pasta?” I asked him.
He’d brought it back from Italy with him — put it in his backpack and brought it back on the plane.
We ate and we drank and we laughed and we rolled a few and then it was time to go. We told Tony again how fabulous it was to be there with him in his fabulous new house and what a fabulous job he did in putting it all together by himself and he looked around and said,
“Yeah,” he was happy there.
“When I get up in the morning and I come out to the kitchen and I look at that sink,” he said, gesturing towards the windows that were then dark with night,
“I feel happy. My kitchen sink makes me feel happy.”
Love comes from brothers who give you and your husband the best date nights in town, who bring pasta home from Italy, who are happy when they look at their kitchen sinks and who will always have enough bread and peanut butter and jelly on hand, just in case they get stuck on a desert island.
Author Bio: Carmelene Melanie Siani
Carmelene writes stories from every day life and how life itself offers lessons to help us grow, expand, and put our feet on higher ground.
https://www.facebook.co/StoryBelly/
Kindness Blog 
What a crisp and precious moment in memory you have shared with us here. Thank you for that.
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I am convinced it is the moments like these that make life worth living. Thank you for your cmment Joseph Elon Lillie.
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True story!
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That’s a wonderful story and a perfect date night. How can you go wrong with family and pasta from Italy?
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So true Bikerchick57! So true! Thanks you!
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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It made me miss my brother! And boyfriend. Thank you 🙂
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