guess who's coming to dinner?

I love the idea of having someone over for dinner and just having a relaxing evening of talking. But somehow, that never really happens. Well tonight it did! Our friends Daniel and Ben came over to see the house and I offered to cook dinner. The picture below makes me happy because you can feel that everyone had a cozy supper and just left the table. I also am in love with our Williams Sonoma tablecloth even though it's too big.

Our meal consisted of a Herb Pork Loin (you can sort of see the green specks on top of the pork), and Rosemary Roasted Potatoes. Why am I capitalizing everything?

I really thought I overcooked the pork, but it ended up being delicious. This picture was taken after we had demolished half of the 4-pound loin and a good 3/4 of the potatoes. I'm happy to report that Ben (not my Ben, Daniel's Ben) loved the pork even though he hates pork! I was so proud. The pork kind of looks like those "Beef. It's what's for dinner" print ads where the beef loins are gigantic mountains. The pork looks like a mountain, and the potatoes look like...potatoes.

The picture below shows my test recipe, given to me by my mother. It's roasted butternut squash, sweet potatoes and red onion. It was delicious. I'm going to make the rest of it into a soup on Thursday night. I've never had roasted butternut squash before, and I officially love it. My Ben loved it, which was a surprise, because he doesn't like sweet potatoes.

And below, is dessert. I don't know quite what to say about this dessert other than it was DISGUSTING. I followed the recipe exactly (it's supposed to be Individual Pumpkin Mousse) and it backfired. I took the first bite and warned the boys that it wasn't up to par, and they agreed. This represents exactly how much dessert we were able to eat.

We went to Jake's instead. :)

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead...

Hey there. I'm Lauren, and yes, I'm driving while eating a banana. And smiling for a photo. I was trying to make a gleeful face because I just bought this camera. Very exciting stuff.

Hey there. This is Ben. I hate these sunglasses he wears, but regardless, this is Ben. Nice face, honey.

I've decided to start a blog about life in our little green house, because life in the little green house deserves some sort of record. Twenty years from now, I'll want to look back at our young beautiful faces and laugh. Well, I won't have aged much because botox will be coursing through my veins.

Anyway, today Ben and I decided to go out on an excursion. Actually, I made Ben go out with me on an excursion. We've been cooped up lately (mainly because of money), and since there are very few "fall" things to do in Decatur unless you have children or money, I was anxious to check out this festival. I read about it in the Decatur Dispatch, which every good Decatur citizen reads.

The 3rd Annual Church Street Fall Fest was today, and it was a nice little event. Basically, they take over one city block in downtown Decatur and put balloons up. Other than that, I gathered no real change from any other Sunday on this street, in these shops. Can we just talk about this apron? Adorable.

Our first stop at the Fest was to Java Monkey - my favorite Decatur coffee shop. It has a very similar vibe to Hot Corner in Athens: Emo kids hanging around and pretending to study. I used to be one of those Emo kids, except I was a fake Emo kid and actually did study. I love the window of Java Monkey - look at that mischievous face!

I purchased an iced latte, because it was a lovely day and I felt it would be one of the last times I would be able to drink an iced anything this year. Ben ordered a water, which I didn't feel deserved a picture. However, my delicious iced latte made the cut. Armed with coffee, we jaywalked across the street to Taste. Taste is the "foodie" shop here in Decatur, although some may argue that Cook's Warehouse wins. I think that Taste has better gifts while Cook's Warehouse has all the unique kitchen gadgets Alton Brown recommends. Both are great. Regardless, Taste was hosting their Bundt Cake Battle today at 2:00, and guess what? We got to taste test!

Here's the picture of the Bundt cakes. The winner was Chocolate Lover's Dream Bundt Cake (the black looking cake on the right), with the Key Lime Pie Bundt cake coming in second (it's the yellow one in the middle of the table).As I was taking the picture of the cakes, I said, "I'm taking a picture of the cakes, since they're so beautiful!" And then I said to the girl, "Don't worry, your face isn't in the picture." Apparently that came across as an insult (Ben goes "woah" behind me after I said it)...the girl didn't take to kindly to me after that. Whoops.


Here's Ben looking especially young. He was taste testing. His only request was for the chocolate cake, and here he is eating it. You can see the wall of cards behind him on the left - there are some great cards at this place. Ben bought one for DeeDee, his grandmother.




This is him eating a bite of the Key Lime Pie, and the big piece was the Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Bundt Cake. Ben describes it as "umm...I mean, they were all good. I thought it was the least good of the three on my plate. That double-chocolate deluxe thing or whatever was amazing."
That is a direct quote.

After the Church Street Fall Fest (good fun, but not as big a deal as I was hoping for), we headed to the Kudzu Antiques Market! I love this place; it is a gigantic warehouse of antique booths. We needed Halloween costumes, because we're attempting to be Mr. and Mrs. Draper from Mad Men this year.
I found a costume, and he found a prop, but that's all I'm saying because I'll post photos of our costumes when we actually pull them together.

It was 4:00 by this point and we were hungry, so we decided to head over to the Dekalb Farmer's Market for some groceries. I love the sign for the farmer's market because it makes me feel like I'm going to Epcot. I wish there was Epcot-esque music playing as you entered the market. That would be nice.


This is a photo from inside the Farmer's Market. I have to tell you that this place is a madhouse on weekends. Ben HATES the farmer's market during the weekend. Another quote:

"It's like a bunch of spastic children racing towards whatever their eye catches first."



I don't particularly mind the farmer's market on Sunday, but I do understand why Ben doesn't like it. There's no flow to the place, like a grocery store. It also has a very peculiar smell to it, but that's beside the point. I took a photo of all the amazing fresh herbs they have. Can't you just smell them? Ah.
All in all, it was a good day. The weather was nice, I got a new camera, and we got out of the house. Anyway, that's about it for now. Thanks for being a part of our first post! Ben may get on here from time to time and say something...we'll see.

Off to watch Mad Men, our new favorite show. I'll post about that later!