Serves You Right:
Set a Festive Tone with Offbeat Tableware
By Christina Owens
CTW Features
To create a more innovative holiday table, look beyond traditional serving plates and bowls. Your strategy: repurposing. Chefs Geoff Gardner of Boston’s Au Soleil Catering, Gregg Wangard of Ocean and Vine at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel in California and George Jewell of Chicago’s Jewell Events Catering, weigh in on how to think outside the plate.
Use glassware or porcelain mugs to serve food: Light, colorful, fork-friendly food works best. Put a caprese salad of cherry tomatoes, mini mozzarella and basil in a martini glass and crab or lobster salads in a rocks glass. Sit the glasses on plates to create an interesting look.
Don’t have an army of ramicans for baking crème brûlée: Porcelain cups will work just fine, and feature a handle for guests who prefer to mingle.
Seek out unique antiques: Use an English chamber pot (lined, of course) to serve butternut squash soup.
Borrow from another culture: Use a Japanese bento box instead of a plate. Wrap the top of the box like a present and set the filled boxes in front of guests at mealtime.
Expand the view with mirrors: Place food on mirrors to create drama on a table.
Use other foods as containers:
• Serve cold soup in whole, uncooked green or red peppers; carefully slice off the tops and remove the seeds and pith.
• Make a literal breadbasket. Slice the top off a large loaf of crusty bread, scoop out the insides and use it as a container for rolls.
• Slice brie and wrap it with prosciutto. Tie the top with carrots finely sliced into long strips to make it look like a present.
• Make crepes and fill them with whatever holiday foods you prefer. Tie the tops with carrots or cucumber sliced on a Japanese mandolin to look like string.
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