A Birthday Party Bonanza

Last night we threw a party to celebrate S's birthday. It was so much fun to see everyone and people really liked the food.

I put together a fruit plate with a giant mutant strawberry on top :) There was a mutant baby carrot around, too, but somebody ate it before I could take a picture. One of our guests told us the real story about baby carrots - they lathe down rotting normal-sized carrots to the core and market them as baby carrots! It's ironic that the carrots most often served at parties are, in fact, salvage. Good thing they have their cute looks.

We also served paté, several dips (hummus, baba ganoush, roasted red pepper and a black olive tapenade with anchovies and capers), various cold cuts (Genoa salami, spicy sopressata and prosciutto) and five kinds of cheese (cambozola, brie, goat's cheese, cheddar and spiced gouda). I also made crostini and an antipasto platter, which I'll blog about soon.