Food & Wine

Not the sort of question that is usually posed here at WatchProSite, but I thought I would give it a try.

My wife borrowed a book from our neighbor that was devoted entirely to cheese and its presentation for group enjoyment, written by a young lady in New York. (See Here). This book loan was intended to prepare my wife to prepare a starter course to a friend's party yesterday, but she off-loaded the job to me instead.

I didn't have the need or time to read the whole book, which is about 90% pictures anyway ... I just got out our giant wooden board, put together a platter of goodies, and off we went to the party with it.

Here's how it looked before the party started:

From left to right across the platter, from top to bottom:

English cheese with porter, stuffed olives with pimento, medjool dates, toasted almonds, Lotus crackers, fig preserves.

Candied Ginger, salami with fennel, salami with pinot grigio, red Leicester cheese, olives stuffed with salmon bits.

On the cheese plate: Wenslydale with cranberry, English cheddar with port, Glacier Gorgonzola from Wisconsin.

Baby carrot pieces, mixed nuts in honey, sweet pepper slices, walnuts.

4 kinds of crackers.

From the other side:

The guests attack! Someone else brought a baked brie dish, apple slices and some more crackers.

After an hour, the hostess called us to dinner. I'm happy to say we ruined everyone's appetite ... and also that we made a valiant effort on the ham, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese and a few other dishes.

We brought the remnants home, regrouped this morning, laid out a new arrangement, chilled more champagne, and prepared for an afternoon meeting at our house.

One thing I did get from the book was the concept of having a "meat river" running through the platter, and adding some greenery for visual interest.

My wife was able to gather sage, lavender and rosemary from the yard, and we added blackberries and raspberries today.

If you can get here in an hour, c'mon over.

Cazalea

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