Years ago, I learned that a key to easy and fun entertaining was to set up foods as a serve-yourself bar. It relieves you from the work of serving a formal dinner, or from spending the party passing out canapes, while helping create entertainment for your guests, too. Now, Platters and Boards: Beautiful, Casual Spreads for Every Occasion takes those lessons several steps further, and shows you how to offer a board of different foods you can piece together in minutes and, voila, instant party.
The book offers inspiring ideas for a variety of events: baby shower, girl’s night, weeknight dinner, dinner party starter, birthday, mother’s/father’s day, warm/cold weather, housewarming, bridal shower, game night, along with seasons and holidays around the year. Each of the dozen or so concepts for complete platters on each of those events includes ten or so ingredients/dishes, with a specific recipe, which serves as centerpiece or sauce/salsa/chutney to help tie everything together.
Several of the concepts are repeating, and show up — with different ingredients and dishes — for many of the events, such as: deviled egg platters, fondue spreads, vegetarian, Mediterranean platter, desserts, and more. It’s all not only super easy, but really clever and inventive, too. The book itself is a beauty with lovely and sumptuous photography alongside a clear and easy-to-follow layout. This would make a great book for anyone who likes to entertain (without a lot of work), including if that anyone is you!
