- Just so we're all aware of what my game plan is,
I'm definitely gonna stab this cheese with a serving knife
at some point.
That will give your guests an incentive
to cut the cheese themselves.
Cut the cheese themselves.
I'm a food stylist.
Consider me a makeup artist for food.
I take boring, everyday, average food
and make it look amazing.
You asked for it and here I am to provide it.
I'm gonna show you guys how a food stylist
makes a mouth-watering cheese board for entertaining.
(calm music)
Before you can do anything with food,
to build your cheese board, you have to pick out your props.
So what we have here is our New Year's Eve
themed cheese board or grazing board set up.
We have blacks, golds, silvers.
We're really playing up the upscale version
of making a cheese board.
Since we have our props set up just the way we like it,
now we're going to mark everything
so I can take it to my kitchen and add the food.
The next step is the cheese.
Obviously, for entertaining,
we want a variety of flavors and textures.
So I have this beautiful Gruyere cheese
that has this really lovely multitextured
and colorful rind on it
and then we're also gonna incorporate our cheddar
because I feel like that is a staple.
We have a blue cheese which I think is also essential
when building a cheese board.
It is obviously a very strong flavor cheese
but it also has this beautiful color and texture.
Next, we're gonna do a round cheese.
Normally, that's brie or even Camembert.
I really love a goat cheese and it's also really mild
and people are really familiar with it
and this is a really fun one
that has an Everything Bagel seasoning on it
which is everything bagel is like everything.
So when you see crumbled cheese,
already crumbled cheese, already sliced cheese,
it's like it's already that one step further prepared
for you to go ahead and consume it.
So it's already registering in your brain
that it's ready to be eaten,
at least that's what my stomach is telling me right now.
All right, we have five beautiful cheeses
for our upscale New Year's Eve cheese board.
They look great.
I think they're staged really well.
So now we're gonna move on to the next thing.
So we have prosciutto.
Very classic but also delicious.
It's a great accompaniment to any cheese, firm or soft
and so we're just gonna take our thin sheets of prosciutto
and just kind of roll them up.
Doesn't have to be perfect.
We actually don't want it to be perfect.
When placing my meat,
I just kinda started in a spot that felt good.
I have this, a border from the bowl here
but then also kind of a border from the cheese here
and it just fills that space really nicely
and flows really well with everything else.
So I think I'm gonna go over to this side of the board
and just do a folded salami situation.
I would say initially brie or Camembert
and prosciutto go really well together.
Hard salami and cheddar or Gruyere go really well together.
You could mix and match.
You could do whatever.
You can just be inspired with it
and just go with whatever your gut tells you
or you can be a little bit more strategic
about where you're placing things
and how you're placing things.
Salami doesn't like to cooperate as much as prosciutto does
so we're just going for it and hoping that it looks great.
I have this whole sticks of salami which are really nice
and also again, we're talking about adding layers
of textures and shapes and colors.
Okay, so we have our lovely sliced, folded salami
if this guy will stop unfolding or I'm going to eat him
and then we have this lovely sliced cured whole salami
and then we have our beautiful prosciutto.
So that, we are done, we are done with the meats for now.
Other than the cheese,
this is probably one of my favorite things
to add onto a cheese board or grazing board
and it is the fruit and veggies.
I'm actually gonna add a little bit of a crudités section
to our cheese board for this.
This just adds even more layers to your cheese board
and is even more inviting for entertaining purposes.
So I have all these beautiful vegetables here.
These sweet mini peppers are so colorful, flavorful.
We're just gonna prep them by slicing them in half
taking out the seeds and the vein
but we're gonna leave this really cute little green top.
It gives somebody a piece to hold on to
if they're gonna dip it into something
but then also it's just a really bright green color
which adds a visual aesthetic that's really nice
then I also have these really lovely cucumbers
and I'm just gonna cut them on a bias.
It's really important to incorporate something green
vegetable wise on your crudités part of your cheese board.
Brightness, freshness
and obviously the texture of a cucumber
provides a lot of crisp, refreshingness to everything
and then I have these really gorgeous watermelon radishes.
Since we are technically in fall, radishes are in season.
So these are beautiful
and not difficult to find this time of year.
This one has the green on the outside
so it's a little bit more contrasty.
It still has the starburst pink, magenta in the middle
but it has the green on the outside.
Okay, last but not least,
I'm just gonna add a couple of carrots.
They even still have the little green tops on 'em.
So cute.
So I have orange, purple and yellow carrots.
This is my next favorite part
because we have all these beautiful fruits.
So I have red and green grapes
and I think I'm gonna go with the red grapes.
The red grapes actually just feel
a little bit more elegant and upscale.
So I'm just gonna do a little trimming
and then I'm gonna give 'em a little spritz.
Obviously, wet fruit looks the best.
It enhances the color but then also just visually appealing
because fruit is supposed to be moist and juicy
and we want our fruit to look like that.
We have these beautiful pears.
Probably since I went with red grapes,
I probably won't go with the red pear
so I think we'll go with the green pear today
just to add more contrast.
For slicing my pear,
I'm just actually going to cut down the side of the pear
around the core and you get this beautiful,
bright color green skin and the white flesh on the inside
and they're just absolutely beautiful
and since I went ahead and sliced my pear,
I'm gonna show you a little trick
to keep the pear from turning.
We have a concentrated lemon juice product
and then we also have a product,
they call it Fruit-Fresh but it's really like a citric acid.
If you have a bowl of water,
you can add either one of these products,
whichever makes you feel most comfortable to use.
I like lemon juice but Fruit-Fresh, like I said,
it's essentially the exact same thing
but we're just gonna put some lemon juice in this bowl
and then we're gonna put our pear slices in the water
and just let 'em sit for a little bit.
They don't have to be in there for very long
but basically what that does
is it creates a shield around your sliced fruit.
We're gonna take it out and add it to our board.
Okay, so we have these gorgeous blackberries.
For food styling, I think the only thing that I would say
is when you have a super huge blackberry like that,
it's not necessarily the most attractive
even though there's nothing wrong with it.
I would just say having your fruit be a more petite size
is just really nice and appealing.
Okay, we're on step five.
We are gonna fill all these cute little bowls
that we picked out.
So I have a roasted garlic and onion jam.
I think the sweetness from the jam itself
really is gonna play well with that stinky,
creamy blue cheese but then also it has that savory note
which will pair really well with it too.
I think honey makes a really great addition
to a cheese board.
The rich amber color of this honey is beautiful
and I do think that adding the honey onto the cheese board
adds an elegant upscale feel to it
and I have a store bought hummus.
I am not ashamed of store bought hummus.
I think it's delicious
and if you have a brand that you like,
why not make life easier on yourself?
Just as a little extra bump up,
we're going to do some olive oil on top of the hummus.
So I have olives from an olive bar.
It's called a Castelvetrano.
Not to be fancy or boujee or whatever
but these are very mild and buttery in flavor.
I'm obviously picking out the brighter green ones
that are in this container
because we wanna stick with like a very strong
beautiful visual appeal.
These are called cherry drop peppers.
It adds that visual pop from the red onto the platter
but then the flavor of these little peppers are delicious.
They're tart from a brine but they're sweet
and they have a little bit of a kick to 'em.
Alongside the plate with the cherry drop peppers,
I'm gonna add some cornichons or Gherkin,
little Gherkin pickles.
They pair really well with the cured meats
and definitely with the harder cheeses
but then they're obviously just really great
to eat by themselves and they're super cute.
Who doesn't wanna eat a tiny pickle?
So I think the last thing I wanna add
in our final empty bowl that we have on our plate
is some Marcona almonds.
Marcona almonds are blanched almonds
that have been fried, yep, fried,
deep fried in olive oil and then coated in sea salt.
They're absolutely delicious
and they pair super well with cured meats,
olives, cheeses, the whole shebang.
All right, I have reached a stopping point
for building this cheese platter in my kitchen
and now we are ready to go back on set
where we marked our props originally
and put this back in our photo setup
and do some finishing touches
and really set the scene for our New Year's Eve party
with our gorgeous cheese board that we have built today.
All right, guys, we have brought everything I made
over to our photo set.
So we've got it all back in its place.
So there are a few holes in my board
left for just small things that I wanna add.
I wanna put some candied pecans
up around the blue cheese and the jam.
Another really delicious element
you can add to your cheese board that is a small thing
that can just fit in between other items on your board
is dried fruit.
I particularly love dried apricots.
They're vibrant, tangy, sweet
and it basically tastes like you're eating candy.
I also have these really lovely raw pistachios
that are not in the shell.
It'll be convenient for people to eat
but it also adds just like a really gorgeous color.
So a couple things that I just wanna bring up
about serving a cheese board,
obviously you would love to pair it
with a fresh cooked baguette that you've sliced like so
for your guests to accompany with their meat and cheese,
crackers of any sort.
Possibly you want your cheese board
to be gluten free friendly.
So you wanna have all of those options off to the side
and not necessarily incorporated within your cheese board.
We have spoons for our sauces and dips
and then I also have a couple cheese knives
which are obviously really important
for people serving themselves.
So like I said, we're gonna take a cheese knife
and stab this guy over here
and then I have this really cute little honey wand
that will go in our little honey pond we have over here.
So we have these really beautiful candles
that really set the scene for our New Year's Eve party.
We have our cocktail napkins, we have little plates
and we have our stemless flutes
that we're gonna pour some bubbly in.
Ooh.
Okay, guys, I think that this cheese board
is absolutely delicious and is elegant for any occasion
especially for a New Year's Eve get together.
It's so many textures and layers of not only colors
but flavor as well.
Be sure to go on YouTube
and follow and subscribe to Well Done.
Be sure to go on Instagram and follow me.
If you put together a cheese board,
definitely show me what you're capable of.
So happy New Years, guys.
I really hope that you're enjoying
watching Food Stylist Versus
and I hope that you get to make
your cheese board really soon.