It was the end of a beautiful sunny Sunday in Seattle. To top it off we had a big top table at local vegan sustainable foraging supportive collective Sutra. It was Erin's choice for a big birthday dinner with friends – a group of which I feel lucky to be in.
Here we all are. Or at least here is everybody but me because I'm behind the iPhone camera.
As resident food blogger I volunteered to document our dinner adventure and it was quite the display of both food art and flavor that presented itself.
Sutra has a set menu of courses each night introduced before the dinner begins by the chef describing each ingredient as well as how it got to our table. We began our dinner by examining the wine list to choose the most versatile for our wide array of foods to found. We chose an unoaked chardonnay by a Washington winery called Airfield and a Cote de Rhone from France.
After some conversation about the joys of living through one's Saturn returning the first course arrived. It was an arugula salad featuring foraged fiddle heads accompanied by a spicy chili cauliflower soup. The dressing you see was made with ground hemp seeds creating a light oil texture that balanced like a gymnast with the pleasant bitter arugula and sweet walnuts.
Salad was followed by a "turtle" made of parsnips stuffed with shitake garlic nettle pesto and surrounded by a cherry reduction and sprinkled with fried sunchokes. It was a piece of art.
By now arguments sprung up about how people could already by full and who was fastest to devour the bounty presented to us. The third course then arrived.
A crepe created from mung beans (to remain vegan) filled with smoked roasted carrots accompanied by raspberry balsamic greens and a tomato sauce that paired perfectly with our Cote de Rhone.
By now the natural light in the room was fading – I had to start photographing by candlelight and conversation brightly jumped with the flames.
Until real fire and light of the party arrived. Dessert.
Coconut milk icecream with a fig and sunflower crust doused in cinnamon chocolate ganache and a little rhubarb caramel for good measure.
This is how I spell yummy birthday cake.