Thursday, April 16, 2015

Bread Boards (aka the dinner trick)

Have you ever seen *Triscuits* masquerade so successfully as dinner?  
I'm not offering you a recipe today. In fact, what I'm offering is a non-recipe. And it's this: make, or acquire, a stable of pretty little bread boards, and you will always have dinner. Or perhaps I should say "dinner," because the point here is to use the bread board the way fashion people might use a nice, big belt: to pull the disparate elements of your refrigerator together into a dinner-type outfit. 


Odds and ends of good cheese and bread, crackers, fresh or dried fruit, a sprig of some or other fresh herb, a dollop or marmalade or honey, pickles or mustard, a nice piece of salami for the meat-eaters, maybe a salad on the side. This is the way we eat a great deal of the time. Birdy especially, since this is what I make her instead whenever we're having something of the meat persuasion. 

bread, cheddar, brie, dates, apple-rosemary jelly
She is never not happy to have a bread board. In fact, nobody is. Nobody is never not happy. Are you following? WTF? I'm trying to say that everybody loves the bread boards. It's a little like our famous bean feasts, the principle being that dinner-eaters often like to assemble there own lovely little bites and arrangements of food, rather than being served a big plate of a thing. It also makes for great conversation, since everyone has to tell you about their favorite combination (cheddar + spicy mustard + grapefruit marmalade) or force you to try it (twist my arm). I should mention that we got this idea from a former favorite restaurant of ours (it has since burned down but is reincarnated here) that offered a bread board on the kids' menu: a $5 selection that included a couple slices of bread, some artfully rolled-up turkey and ham slices, a little of this or that cheese, and a tiny ramekin of mustard. It was a real pleaser.

cheeses, bread, marmalade, bad flash photography
Michael made our boards for Birdy's twelfth (sob!) birthday, and I can tell you how. He sawed a 1- by 8-inch pine board ($8.57 for a 6-foot board at Home Depot) into 12-inch lengths, then sanded them and rubbed them well with beeswax. He drilled the holes with a 1-inch bit; they are purely decorative, since we don't actually hang the boards, but I love how they look. (For what it's worth, Home Depot will cut the board for you for free! At least the first four cuts, I think. Then you have to blow somebody.)


But you could also buy nice little boards, like these 5-dollar ones at IKEA. Or these fancy bamboo ones from Amazon. Oh, and these little spreaders too.


Speaking of bread, I wrote a little bit about it at The Mid. And speaking of The Mid, I wrote a little bit about the 80s there too.

Take care, my lovelies. xo

38 comments:

  1. Sarahd12:22 PM

    "Then you have to blow somebody." SNORT! I won't ask how you know:). Thanks for the dinner idea! I still call a chips/veggies/dips dinner a "coffee table dinner" because of you and my whole family loves them so I'm betting "bread board dinner" will also be a success!

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    1. Oh, I'm so glad! I really do love coffee table dinner too, and this works perfectly as one.

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  2. And that bread recipe is WHAT??? Nearly 10 years old??? WHAT??? Doesn't it feel like 2005 is like yesterday and at the same time on an earlier life? WOW... I really need to read all of your archives... (and mine too, for that matter).

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    1. No, no. It's not that old. I back-date them when I move them here, to keep them from interrupting the flow of later entries. I think it's just from, I don't know, 2010 or something. xo

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    2. oh, OK! :-) I've been meaning to ask about the back dated posts FOREVER and always forget to. I was trying to think that Ben didn't seem to be 4 years old in those photos! Are these "older" posts ones you wrote for the Disney site and now aren't available anymore? Have you brought all of them over yet? (I'm SO glad you're doing that!!) Some of them would have been from 2005-6 & 7 anyway, no? (So maybe some could be approximately from that time, right?) Forgive me for my inquisitiveness... but I'm just always extremely curious about everything (I guess that's what led me to become an academic, then I can always be asking and trying to answer all kinds of questions). ;-)

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  3. Anonymous12:43 PM

    YES! we call them "pub boards" - bonus if there's a fancy-ish ingredient like avocado, wasabi pea, single ravioli, artfully sliced mango....

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    1. Oh, brilliant! "Single ravioli" really made me laugh.

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    2. I know!! single ravioli is pretty brilliant! ;-)

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    3. Jennifer LB6:33 PM

      Don't you mean raviolo? ;)

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  4. I love the article about the bread, especially the bit about Heidi. As a kid I was so enamored of her alpine life - heading into the mountains with her bread and cheese to hang out with Peter and the goats (or sheep ... whatever they were). But who am I kidding? I'd *still* love to do that!

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    1. And the 80s article ... funny and poignant all at once. How great that the first item included your corduroy knickers! Mine were red, I paired them with a multi-colored, striped velour (!!) v-neck sweater. I thought that was the best outfit ever.

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  5. I love this. I'm doing this. Kind of like ploughman's lunch...on a board. And that bread recipe is the best--I kind of played around with it and turned it into rosemary olive oil bread.

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  6. I love this. I'm doing this. Kind of like ploughman's lunch...on a board. And that bread recipe is the best--I kind of played around with it and turned it into rosemary olive oil bread.

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  7. YOU wrote that 80's article that was circulating all over Facebook, the one that I loved and "liked" and shared but somehow didn't realize it was you? All makes perfect sense now.

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  8. Anonymous4:10 PM

    Our friends in Germany do this every morning: breakfast is various rolls, cheeses, meats, butter, and jam. Difference being everyone grabs a board and makes their own. But, yum, no matter when or how!

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  9. Anonymous4:21 PM

    Are your baby centre articles gone gone gone forever?! (Weeping) they were archived for ages but now have disappeared & I need them to survive baby 3 to remember its all wonderful really!

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    1. Allyson4:08 PM

      Noooo! I re-read those every couple of years and then try to figure out how my two-year-old and not-yet born baby turned into these giant 14- and 12-year-old kids running through my house on their way to somewhere else.

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  10. Betsy4:23 PM

    Well, I'm way behind, because I am about to be the one who starts the 80s article back around Facebook again because it is clearly about me.

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  11. Oh Catherine! Won't you come to Colorado to speak or something?? As an added bonus, we have some of the best breweries in the country here. Just a thought...good bread too.

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  12. Love this! We've been having "tray" dinners, wherein I assemble an ever-changing array of edibles on a big tray, set it on the coffee table, and we all have at it. I'll send a pic of the last one. Can't wait to try it (tray it?) in the summer when cooking in an un-air-conditioned house is like asking to go insane.

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    1. Heading over to read your 80's piece...yay!!!

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    2. (LOVED it! mega-flashback.)

      PS - love the Michael-made trays, so sweet!

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    3. HA! I LOVE the Can't wait to tr[a]y it pun!! Would love to see your photo.

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  13. We call those cutting board suppers - avocado, cheese plain or fancy, lots of cut up raw veg, fruit, any leftover bits of meat or roasted veg. Triscuits. Our own little cups of mustard and mayo, with wee spreaders from our favorite thrift store. Yum.

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  14. Allyson4:06 PM

    Catherine, I just read your piece on the 80s, and it was not only hilariously spot on (Ralph!), but it left me in tears. How do you do this to me every damn time? Stay gold, Catherine.

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  15. Went to the site, read your piece about bread, and saw that you have a new book coming out! Squeeeeee!!!!!!

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  16. Anonymous11:32 AM

    It's a ploughman's lunch! You're running an English pub there. Add some hard cider.

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  17. We have this for dinner quite frequently in the summer but I never thought of serving it on a board! So much fancier!! And spooning out the condiments rather than lugging a bunch of crusty jars to the (coffee) table? Brilliant!!

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  18. Anonymous11:35 PM

    Love the bread board dinner idea-- works perfectly. Haven't read your pieces for a while, and am offering belated but heartfelt condolences on the loss of your friend of 43 years. Grief is stunning. Take care of yourself. Sending love.

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  19. I now want to start a blog just dedicated to everyone submitting their examples of board dinner concoctions. It would be art AND great food ideas for pennies. Of course, now I need that bread. Thanks for showing family life and food as it really is - from crack broccoli to chicken wings to children who are all growing up much too fast.

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  20. Deirdre9:11 AM

    Then you have to blow somebody. I laughed so hard at that! So when
    Michael made the boards (so awesome) for Birdy's twelfth (so unbelievable) birthday, could please explain more? Was it a ploughman's lunch idea for her party? It's a kick ass idea all around. Thank you.

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  21. Ah, I love your writing. Always so funny and yet still so unexpected.

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  22. I love this idea!!! Adding it to my mommy arsenal!

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  23. The bread boards are a brilliant and timely idea. And how is it that Birdy is 12? I remember first reading your lovely and ridiculously perfect writing before she was born. How we are so old? And our children so big? And the 80s so long ago? Most of all, how do we keep holding so much loss as life keeps rolling? Thinking of your broken heart, your friend, your sweet family. Thank you for sharing your work.

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  24. You are just so lovely and wonderful; there just really aren't enough all-caps and italics for me to express my adoration. Which is to say, I am totally stealing everything about this idea. xox

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  25. Catherine! I'm here searching for the asparagus with delicious dip recipe because it's finally Spring! But apparently that was posted elsewhere! I'll see if I can remember it.

    The homemade bread boards are a wonderful Mother's Day gift idea....

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  26. Anonymous10:27 AM

    How did I not know that you could serve crackers and cheese and misc. things and call it dinner, not just "a snack"? Serving it on a board makes it fancy. This will change my summer.

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  27. Between this and the whole tartine fad, it seems like all my weird eating habits (lunch made of raw foods/leftovers/a lot of bread and cheese and my love of putting anything and everything on toast) all fancy and hip!

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