I've found the secret to hosting the perfect dinner party in my 50s... giving this very misunderstood drug to my guests. It's taking over my middle-class circle: LIESEL KAHN

This weekend I am giving a dinner party that will have a little something extra – a sprinkling of ingredients with exotic names like 'liberty cap', 'golden teacher' and 'McKennaii' added to my usual cardamom shortbread. No, they aren't rare spices, they are what's commonly known as 'magic mushrooms'.

This will be my third such evening. And while you might be having visions of embarrassing, chaotic, middle-aged 'tripping', in fact it will be a supper party like any other, but just that little bit funnier, more colourful and with conversations rather more exotic than those about the cost of living and how our children are getting on at school or university or in employment. I like to think I'm a good cook anyway, but somehow my food tastes ambrosial on these nights.

My husband Pete says the same about the wine: he serves the usual Majestic quaffable, but it somehow tastes like the deepest of clarets. That's the magic of mushrooms for a middle-class hostess like me – they make me feel like a domestic goddess without the effort.

Of course, some will say that our behaviour is appalling, and that we are taking a risk with our health, as with any drugs. That's one of the many reasons our friends for these nights are carefully handpicked for their open-minded attitudes, and we tell them beforehand that we might have a few nibbles from something called a 'Wonka bar' (our Golden Ticket to fun – chocolate bars with dried, powdered mushrooms mixed into them).

Sometimes, a friend won't want to partake, and that's fine. Unlike so many other drugs, mushrooms create a lovely, friendly, welcoming buzz that raises the level of humour and enjoyment in the room for everyone, rather than making anyone who abstains feel excluded.

That's why I'm a fan, even though I'm probably the last person you'd expect to dabble with drugs. I'm a 57-year-old health nut, almost teetotal and into yoga and turmeric supplements. I have a busy day job working in television in the West Country, and I'm a loving wife to my husband and a part-time stepmother to two demanding 20-somethings.

Some will say that our writer's behaviour is appalling, and that she is taking a risk with her health, as with any drugs. Silocybin, the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, has been successfully used to treat PTSD in war veterans. In the UK, magic mushrooms are a Class A substance, possession of which could potentially lead to a prison sentence.

I first came across mushrooms by chance in 2018 when I was on holiday, staying with a friend in the US. He lives near Santa Cruz in California and was commercially involved in growing medical cannabis. He'd also started to devote some of his land to mushrooms (all legally, I should add).

He was fascinated by the medical applications of psilocybin, the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms. This powerful psychedelic compound has been successfully used to treat PTSD in war veterans, helping sufferers to break out of habituated responses to fear and anxiety, and sparking their brains into healthier pathways.

Since then, of course, the supposed healing effects of psilocybin have received popular attention after Prince Harry wrote about taking the drug to treat unresolved grief in his memoir, Spare. I've never been a 'drugs person', but on that holiday I had just finished making an exhausting TV series and was feeling rather battered. 'Try a tiny pinch of this two or three times a week and you'll see the world as a better place,' my friend reassured me.

At his urging I started with a tiny dose, which I repeated a couple of times during my week-long stay. At that level – known as a 'microdose' – I felt no different in myself, but somehow the shroud of exhaustion lifted and the world looked bright and inviting once more.

On my last night, feeling more confident, I took a larger amount and happily blissed out on my friend's deck, gawping at the endless colours of the sunset and feeling my brain drift away from the narrow paths of my usual self-recriminations and repetitive anxious thoughts. It was as if my brain was newly agile. I felt amazing. And it was all totally legal in the part of California where he lives.

Of course, in the UK, magic mushrooms are a Class A substance, possession of which could potentially see me spend years in prison. So I decided to put it down to a moment of holiday madness and promptly forgot (almost) all about it. Until last summer, when Pete and I went to a rather smart dinner party in London and, after the meal, were offered a tray on which there was a pile of greyish-brown dust, along with a tiny spoon; a few small cups designed for drinking Japanese saké; and a pot of steaming hot water.

Our hostess explained that we were supposed to take a tiny spoonful of the 'dust' (in fact, dried and powdered psilocybin mushrooms) and brew our own 'shroom tea in our saké cups. I had a sudden flashback to a similar occasion in the 1990s, when the same friend handed me a mirror striped with lines of cocaine, and a rolled-up five pound note. Back then I was terrified, because the only thing I knew about cocaine was that I didn't want to do it. I mumbled something about having a cold and passed it on untouched, watching with horrified fascination as everyone else snorted a line or two.