Thursday, October 18, 2018

Charcuterie board

This is a Whole Foods flier, an email advertisement. They're too fascinating to be annoying. I kill off a hundred spam mails each day but keep these, and study them. I find the photographs, food styling, the arrangements, the choices of items all fascinating. These guys are pros. And as I look I must notice there isn't all that much meat. A pass by their deli counter would provide a lot more than pancetta, salami and pepperoni. Come on! They could have cured and uncured ham, capicola, smoked turkey, brisket, all kinds of sausages. Their selection is fantastic. There are as many grape varieties here than meat, more cheese here than meat, more off-the-wall fruit and vegetables than meat, pomegranate, artichoke, figs.

They arranged the grapes as if they are fabric. They went by color putting green dots with red. They did not take clumps of grapes and toss them on the board, they trimmed each clump and arranged them carefully. They arranged bread and crackers on the outside with chutney. It's an organized artistic mess, more an artist's palate than a painting. The bread is sliced and arranged so its crumb shows yet still appears random. Nothing about this is spontaneous yet it looks zen. It takes a careless sloppy attitude with an artist's eye to arrange for that specifically tight tossed and tumbled carefree look that takes hours to prepare.

Like my hair.

Kidding.



I haven't seen these moon drop grapes before. And if I did see them, I'd buy them. Just to experiment. If they have seeds I'd be all ptu ptu ptuey. Then plant the seeds to see if they grow. 



1 comment:

ColoradoJim said...

Moondrop grapes are pretty cool. I had them for the first time last year and got more at King Soopers when they had them back in stock a little while ago. For a seedless grape they have a good bit of flavor and they are crisp enough to snap with your fingers somewhat like snap peas. The season for them is very short and they go to rather extreme measures to be able to propagate them as the seeds do not mature so they grow the seed embryo in a test tube.

I still like seeded grapes though but it is next to impossible to get unless you know someone who grows them. There is something about the combination of the tart skin and the slippery flesh packed with grape seeds that is satisfying to me.