“I discovered a meal between breakfast and brunch.”—Homer Simpson
[Note: This post was originally posted May 2, 2020 on a previous blog of mine]
Before the Isolation of Spring 2020, I had jumped on the popular culinary bandwagon of The Charcuterie Board. For Christmas last year, my family and I assembled several entirely over-the-top trays of smoked and cured meats and cheeses, a variety of gourmet crackers and breads, both dried and fresh fruit, and heaps of 90% dark chocolate.
Was it kind of a pretentious meal? Well, yeah.
Was it good, though? Well, yeah!
I’ll admit that part of my drive to procure the perfect Christmas Day Snacking Table for all ten people who were staying under my roof had sprung from the desire to create that iconic, It’s-A-Wonderful-Life-type Christmassy atmosphere.
And, I have no regrets from the day. Those platters were glorious.
I decided soon after the Instagram pictures had been posted and what I resigned to be satisfactory feedback on it was received that the charcuterie board was, in fact, a marvelous way to serve food to a group of people.
It is, too—however, every brumotactilophobe’s worse nightmare (a brumotactilophobe is a person who does NOT like his food touching another food—and yes, I had to google that term).
For those of you who haven’t already guessed, your loose, modern-day, and I’m guessing Americanized definition of a charcuterie board is any kind of platter, board, plate, or table that has a variety of foods arranged aesthetically on it, for guests to snack on.
While these pretty platters today could contain anything from different kinds of chocolate desserts to an assortment of pickles and relishes, there is actually a more traditional form of the charcuterie board. From what I’ve gathered over the years (from fancy restaurants, from the Food Network magazines, and probably also from a shameful number of Gossip Girl episodes), this “original” board would contain cheeses and meats, and often nuts, spreads, crackers, and maybe some dried fruit. I won’t bore you with more about it, because the internet is crowded with endless information about its origin.
With Florida reopening this weekend, we had some good friends (who, in case anyone is wondering, have been more careful in the last two months to stay locked away that anyone else we know) stay over at our place. It was a “wild” weekend. Wilder than it’s been in a long time, at least.
We grilled out burgers, watched movies, made music, sunbathed, and just talked. We talked like it was going out of style.
When the morning came (anyone else feel like they’re getting too old to stay up past midnight?!), my hubs and I rolled out of bed and began cleaning up the mess from the night before. Cans of soda water, bags of chips, my son’s multiple milk bottles, piles of dishes, and every other evidence from the night before was cleared up, and that’s when I began assembling brunch.
Do you multitask? Not to sound prideful but I sometimes feel like I was probably some sort of military strategist in a former life. I thrive on efficiency even when I’m still 50% asleep like I was this morning. In my pajamas and half-open eyes, I threw sausages on a frying pan, popped bacon in the oven, started a pot of boiling water, and chopped up a navel orange and grapefruit—pretty much simultaneously. I was, however, really, really glad I hadn’t planned to bake anything, because, well—I tend to burn stuff when I multitask. Ha.
After the fruit-cutting, I jostled the sausage links around to make sure they didn’t burn, dropped several eggs into the boiling water, and then proceeded to pull out the rest of the foods for the board. My friend Shelby (who probably felt as groggy as I looked) began silently arranging the croissants and blueberry muffins (I bought them the day before), the pre-washed the grapes and strawberries, and the Greek yogurt on my great big cutting board. Much to my pleasure, she modeled her arrangement after a photo on Pinterest.
Sigh. Woman after my own heart.
We worked in beautiful blissful peace, apart from the strings of curses our husbands were throwing at each at the Switch, and the shrieks of laughter from my son as he watched his father get creamed on Smash Brothers.
It was a wonderful morning.
When the food was served, we chatted and ate and repeated those actions a few times more. Talk about a blessed morning. I don’t take it for granted at all.
All in all, I was really pleased with how the platter turned out, but even more pleased with the response we received to it. Almost ALL the food was gone by the end of our lounge-y brunch. And as a hostess, I doubt there is much more I could’ve hoped for than that. I mean, what’s more wonderful than having good friends over for brunch?—Well, maybe it's having friends who think “thirds” are a thing, too.
Happy May, everyone.
Grace
P.S. Here are some details regarding the foods: the yogurt was Fage’s Total Greek Strained Yogurt (we use the whole milk kind) topped with puffed oats by Arrowhead Mills (Shelby’s husband is allergic to like, every nut out there so our usual granola as a no-go!).
