Gourmet Runner

On Saturday hubby and I made a trip down to the big city--Atlanta. We had a dinner invite with friends, plus some things to pick up from Ikea while we were down there.  We didn't get to buy the awesome office chairs (BOO!) but it was more fun to have a photo shoot here than in the bathroom sink section.  My friend named Vanessa --name twin!--and I met when we were 14 at summer camp in Germany. Since then, we've visited each other in Hawaii, Georgia, and again in Germany. She was back in town for a few days and invited us to dinner with her family. To make it even better, it was a vegan dinner party!  Here is the table loaded with dishes before we sat down to eat: On the table, we've got: a "non-meat-loaf", samosas, carrot and sweet potato soup, ratatouille, couscous, corn on the cob, cucumber rolls, fresh cucumbers from their garden, chinese sauteed eggplant, and of course---some wine! It was a really fantastic meal, and great company. Nice to meet up with o...

Since we are building a new house, we went to Ikea to order our entire kitchen. We decided to basically get EVERYTHING from there--including the appliances. We drove about 90 minutes into Atlanta to get to the Ikea there, and arrived when they opened around 10. We were finished a gazillion years  4 1/2 hours later. This isn't us walking around for hours picking things out, keep in mind. This is us standing in one place in the kitchen department at a computer talking to the staff to go over the kitchen cabinets and logistics of it all. Lunch was a long time coming and the second we were done I basically sprinted over to their restaurant to eat. I got a veggie wrap and tomato veggie soup: Does that spoon look dirty to you? I was pleasantly surprised about the wrap. It was full of mung bean sprouts, cucumber, carrots, and onions. I saw a white sauce in the wrap and was slightly dreading a mayonnaise drenched, soggy wrap. Instead, it was a really nice mild yogurt sauce, maybe wit...