Eventually we will be able to have large gatherings again. I miss digging through all my cookbooks, hosting large parties, and making a bunch of food for everyone. I am eagerly waiting for better days to come, so that’s why I need to keep myself inspired.
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You might be thinking that this cookbook Share: Delicious Sharing Boards for Social Dining couldn’t have come out at a worse time (March 2020). But, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Theo A. Michaels’ purpose for this cookbook was to downsize meals for giant parties to gatherings of 6-8. These recipes are ideal for quaint parties with some of your closest friends or family.
Share: Delicious Sharing Boards for Social Dining is composed of 160 pages full of vibrant photos. This is a visually stunning cookbook, because recipes are made to wow! Each small bite is artfully put together so it is appealing to the eyes and mouth. The photos are helpful because we need to know how to assemble each piece of the recipe. Many of these require careful composition.
Take a look at Carrie’s cookbook lookthrough of this book here:
The cookbook is divided into a few categories: brunch, meze, lunch, garden, picnic, harvest, barbeque, ocean, feast, and sweet. Now we can host a small party at any time of day – inside or outside. It’s enough to get you started and inspired to make your own mini creations for your next small social gathering. I enjoy that not everything is a recipe, and the author encourages you to experiment on your own. For “simple shares” we can have meat, cheese, and olive boards which he lists various items for. The possibilities are endless!
Of the recipes I have seen, they are all quite unique in flavor. Not only that, but require very little ingredients which is a huge bonus when hosting a party! Tasty and effortless is key. I appreciate that a lot of the “finger foods” are made in bulk. For instance, chocolate bark for dessert. We can make one batch and break it up into pieces. If you make one large hot pot, you can separate it into individual bowls to avoid cross contamination.
Ultimately, this is cookbook is called Share: Delicious Sharing Boards for Social Dining because the whole point is to share. Not just the food, but the experience. Sharing boards are fun because all the food is in the middle of the table and we all are interacting with each other and the food. Someday, we will be able to do that again, but we can still find ways of enjoying each other until the time being.
~Kaiti
