Mushroom Party

I turned 27 yesterday!

27 seems like a milestone because when I was in college, all my friends who I thought wereway older than me were about 27. Now, here I am 27 - it feels good. I'm going to like this year.

To celebrate the day, we had a mushroom party at our house. This is my typical way to celebrate my birthday, though I skipped 2011 (can't remember why) and 2009 (busy being engaged with wedding plans and drama - and didn't have any friends in Seattle yet!). The general idea is that it's a food party where everyone brings something made by, of, with, or from some kind of fungi.

So:

moldy cheeses like brie, gorgonzola, or bleu, etc.

yeast leavened bread

Kombucha (tea, fermented with yeast/bacteria colony)

tempeh (mold fermented soy beans)

any dish with actual mushrooms (Porcini polenta, stuffed mushrooms...)

any food made into the shape of a fungus or mushroom (potatoes cut into mushroom shapes, mushroom cake pops, mushroom meringues, etc.)

I always make a rolled "log" cake and decorate it with mushrooms. Each year I do different flavor combos; this year, it was a vanilla bean cake with orange-mascarpone cream filling inside, and whipped chocolate ganache outside. I must say it turned out really well :)

Elliott wore his new wool mushroom pants from GrittyPretty:

I LOVE them :)

Friends!

I searched through old emails and found my hand drawn invitation to my first mushroom party in 2007: