Composing the Plate

By now you’ve hopefully been inspired by some of the cheese boards you’ve seen in our monthly box. Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t. Creating a beautiful cheese board is simple if you follow these easy suggestions. 

1. There’s a happy companionship to be found on a cheese plate, a delicate balance between something zippy and something decadent. We’ve made that part easy for you with our curated box, but a good rule of thumb is to choose a soft, semi-firm, and a hard cheese representing one of each milk type (see our post on cheese style basics if you a need a refresher!) That way you’ll be sure to never have a dull bite!

2. (and possibly the most important step) Let your cheese come to room temperature. We cannot say this enough, cold cheese, as a french gastronomic once said, is dead cheese. And who wants that? Take your cheese out of the fridge roughly an hour before serving to allow the full expression of the cheese to come through.

3. Pick your tools and yes, there is a tool for every cheese. Soft cheeses like camembert, need a brie knife. Taleggio is better suited to a “washed rind” knife, otherwise known as a serrated knife. On harder cheeses one can use a variety of knives, from a cheese plane that creates delicate ribbons to a standard knife.

4. Once those three steps are done, it’s time to get creative. Add some nuts for crunch and dried fruits for sweetness (we always have dried apricots and caramelized walnuts on hand.) Fresh fruit goes a long way to cleanse the palate, try a sliced apple or grapes for classics, or any other local seasonal fruit that catches your eye.

5. You’ll need something to stack all those delicious morsels on, how about a fresh baguette, or something with a little crunch - we love Rustic Bakery Olive Oil and Sel Gris. 

Above all though, making a cheese platter should be enjoyable for you and whomever you are serving it to- so whatever speaks to you, or tastes right, go for it, we’ll only be too excited to hear about whatever you’ve come up with!