Pink Warrior: Eating Toothpaste for Dessert?

It's amazing to me how close you can live to someone and still let months & months go between visits. This happened recently with our dear friends, the Hoffmanns. It seems that Michelle & I SOMEHOW let the months between October 2009 & March 2011 go by without seeing each other...and we live 20 minutes apart. When this news was made public knowledge, our mutual friend Heather H. instructed us to get together at least 2 more times between March & September of this year--her orders! I'm proud to say that we had our families together for dinner in April, Michelle & I had a dinner/concert date in May & just last week we had our families together again for dinner TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW! And we had a ball. BUT...there was this thing with dessert...

Dinner night #1 we were meeting at their house & my job was to bring dessert. I wanted to do something summer-y and kid friendly so I went looking through my recipes. When I picked out the Grasshopper Ice Cream Cake, it said to use mint chip ice cream in it, BUT other flavors could be substituted. My first thought was YUM, mint chip ice cream! But I asked Joey if he thought any of the kids would not like the mint ice cream and he said "Are you kidding? Who doesn't like mint chip ice cream?!?!" Mint chip it is!

We arrive. Kids scramble to the back to play together like they're siblings, we eat this incredible German inspired dinner that Dennis has slaved over all evening, everyone's having cold drinks, laughing, telling stories & I go to get dessert. Oreo crust--yum! Cool whip icing--yum! Chocolate shaving toppings--yum! Mint chip ice cream--FAIL! Dennis says "Why would I eat something that tastes like my toothpaste for dessert?" and proceeds to give me a rather hard time about my dessert choice for the evening. And I'm feeling really terrible because his dinner was fantastic & this was my ONLY job!

So, as we leave & we've come to the unanimous decision to get together again the next night, I promise a knock-your-socks-off dessert just for Dennis.

Banana Split Pie

Now, I assure you that I asked Michelle if Dennis LIKED banana splits before I made this dessert. When I asked him the night before what his favorite dessert was, his response was "It really depends on what I had for dinner..." Really Dennis? Really? Joey grilled burgers, so what's more appropriate for a good ol' American grilled burger than a banana split, right?

When I started to dish out the pie, Dennis said "You know, pecans make my throat itchy...I hope you didn't use any nuts..." At first Michelle did agree with him. Then she said he was just being a pain. I honestly don't know if she was just being nice & kicking him under the table because of the tears welling in my eyes or because he was truly just giving me a really hard time. I do know he ate a piece. Then took the left overs home with him...maybe the dog got dessert? Who knows. But I know the rest of us enjoyed it. And I like to believe it was better than having toothpaste for dessert.