Food... at Home (Finally!)

It's Sunday evening, and I have to report that for the first time in long enough that I can't really remember, we didn't have to have this discussion around 5:00:

Dave: "I'm taking Lanie out. What's for dinner?"

Me: "Ugh. I don't know. What do you want?"

Dave: "I don't know. Can you just figure it out?"

Me: "Um... okay... but what do you want?"

(repeat a few more times... then conclude with ordering something because no one wants to get in the car to pick anything up.)

No... tonight was finally different. But it started this morning.

This morning, we had my parents, brother, and Dave's parents here for brunch. No cooking or baking took place in the kitchen, but we hosted a meal! Take a look:

(table covered in goods!)

(family enjoying aforementioned goods)

(Dave making more coffee in what is obviously a functioning kitchen!)

(useful and beautiful window/pass-through taken for a test-run)

(Lanie: adorable, sneaky little beggar dog.)

(Lucy: adorable, quiet, little well-behaved dog.)

(lots of parents!)

(a sink full of dishes to be washed has never looked so great!)

So that was brunch.

On to dinner...

I'll admit that the first time you use your brand new stove or oven, it should probably be for something fun and exciting... not boiling eggs. But after so many weeks (nay, months) of forced out-eating, and a few consecutive weeks/weekends with guests (which means more and delicious out-eating), we needed a light meal to settle things back down. So, to quote a favorite, we had a salad, only bigger, and with a lot of stuff in it. Including hard-boiled eggs so that I could use the stove top! (I'll also admit that I'm no longer ashamed that something like this got me all giddy and excited):

(super steam-action)

So now it's broken in... this week will give the oven an opportunity to show off, as well, in honor of Thanksgiving and my joy of being able to cook again. Tomorrow I'll post the last of the weekend posts (20th Project), and get on with finishing up this kitchen! Hooray.

To our families: We love you. Thank you for helping us break in our new kitchen! We can't wait to host you all again many more times and as often as possible. You're the best.