Making a cheese platter?

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MooseTrax

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The first snafu on my own. Tomorrow's new guest has indicated she would like a cheese platter on arrival. This is Moosie's area and she is out of reach during the class. What cheeses should be on the platter? If the weather holds as it has been for months it will be about 70 degrees or cooler when the guests arrive if that helps with the choices.
 
A nice creamy Brie or Camembert, a sharp cheddar (local if you can get it), maybe a goat cheese with herbs or a bleu or gorgonzola if you want stinky. I've been told to mix up the milks (goat, sheep, cow); mix up the textures (soft, hard, crumbly) and mix up the flavors (mild, medium, strong) as much as possible. Add some rustic crackers or bread rounds, maybe some grapes or strawberries or olives. Unsalted almonds are a nice touch with a cheese plate, also.
My favorite workshop at the Select Registry conference was a wine/cheese workshop - the workshop was led by Laura Werlin, author of Cheese Essentials. I bought a copy of the book even though I don't do cheese platters here - it has a great recipe for pan forte. She has a newsletter, too.
 
On our cheese platter for a room we put one locally made cheese which is a great cheddar ball, about 5 ounces with crostini, crackers, a little bit of grapes and a couple of strawberries.
If you are going to a grocery store, the favorites seem to be havarti with dill, swiss (the real kind), gouda, Mahon, Manchengo, and a nice Vermont Cheddar. You can put as little as two cheeses or maybe three on the plate with some fruit and crakers.
If you have a Whole Foods kind of store near you or a specialty cheese store guests love Mahon, Cottswold, and you can ask the cheese person if you want a third one.
Hope that helps...
RIki
 
Keep in mind your cost for ingredients and how much you charge. Don't go overboard ;)
 
Keep in mind your cost for ingredients and how much you charge. Don't go overboard ;).
Don't forget if you are in Whole Foods or a Cheese shop you can ask them to cut the packaged cheese into smaller portions if you don't need the size they have available
RIki
 
I am selling more of these and hate it when I really do it up big and then toss cheese! (Yeah, yeah...I know they're paying for it.) I've been using the Laughing Cow cheeses, which are individually wrapped, along with a few Mini Brie wedges which are also wrapped. Add to that a nice cheddar (sometimes a hard Irish cheese instead), a soft herb blend, and maybe another white cheese. Grapes, strawberries, and sometimes apple slices (depends on arrival time & if I think the apples will turn despite lemon juice). Ginger snaps are good with the soft herb cheese or a sweeter cheese, then gourmet crackers of a couple varieties. No triscuits or Town House crackers here! I charge $25 and it's all presented on a silver, marble and crystal thing with a dome and a crystal cracker holder. We have fridges in most of the rooms so the cheese & fruit part can be refrigerated most of the time. But if you use hard or semi-soft cheeses, you should be OK for awhile.
I offer zip lock bags if they need them to take the leftovers :)
 
What about Velveeta..? Just kidding!
Samster, having a fridge in the room and ziploc bags for the leftovers is a nice touch. If you guests are staying more than 1 night they can save the leftovers for the next day
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Here's another interesting article about cheese platters, along with suggestions for modifying it for three cheeses and making it more user-friendly.
Personally, I like milder cheeses, so I would want mine without the washed rind or bleu cheese. Real cheese aficiandos love those, though.
 
What about Velveeta..? Just kidding!
Samster, having a fridge in the room and ziploc bags for the leftovers is a nice touch. If you guests are staying more than 1 night they can save the leftovers for the next day
thumbs_up.gif
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Well, of course you know Velveeta is popular in the South :)
Seems like people order these cheese trays and they they don't even make a dent in it, so it's nice if they can have it for the next day if they're still here or bag it up to take in the car, if they're driving.
 
cheesetray.JPG
Thank you very much for the suggestions. Here is a photo of what it looks like.
 
Those "mini cupcakes" look to me like candy. Must be local made?? Are those Maine Lobsters on the top? The brown one is really cute! What is the white in the domed cover?
 
cheesetray.JPG
Thank you very much for the suggestions. Here is a photo of what it looks like..
Wow that looks great. What are the little things that look like mini cupcakes?
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JeannineIrish said:
Wow that looks great. What are the little things that look like mini cupcakes?
Those are moose and lobster candies we order online. They come in milk and dark chocolate with any kind of sugar candy topper you want. We got the lobsters by mistake, we wanted all moose and evergreen trees to go with the theme, but it seems the lobsters are fun for the guests.
 
The story of the first cheese tray needs to be told so I hope you'll bear with me. It was set up in the room an hour before the stated arrival time to let the cheese come to room temp (thank you whoever posted the link to the cheese newsletter). Then there was a big checkin around the same time. Three rooms all arriving together and one of the rooms had checked in earlier but they were all of a party. They wanted to move their bags out of the way so I told them where the first room was while showing them where the stairs were for the second room.
Off they went to bring the heavy bags to the first room. Then no one returned to check in. One of the party came to me to ask where her bathroom was, she couldn't find it in her room. She had wandered off and put her things in the room with the cheese tray! And she took the cheese tray and gave it to the rest of her family to eat! This was a family that arrived in a stretch limo and they wandered off and went into someone else's room (with the door closed to prevent such an incident) and took their food! Moosie will die laughing when I tell her this later on tonight.
While I am trying to get the cheese tray back the ladies who ordered the tray showed up with more guests in their party than they registered for when they made their reservation. 19 days until Moosie is back.
 
The story of the first cheese tray needs to be told so I hope you'll bear with me. It was set up in the room an hour before the stated arrival time to let the cheese come to room temp (thank you whoever posted the link to the cheese newsletter). Then there was a big checkin around the same time. Three rooms all arriving together and one of the rooms had checked in earlier but they were all of a party. They wanted to move their bags out of the way so I told them where the first room was while showing them where the stairs were for the second room.
Off they went to bring the heavy bags to the first room. Then no one returned to check in. One of the party came to me to ask where her bathroom was, she couldn't find it in her room. She had wandered off and put her things in the room with the cheese tray! And she took the cheese tray and gave it to the rest of her family to eat! This was a family that arrived in a stretch limo and they wandered off and went into someone else's room (with the door closed to prevent such an incident) and took their food! Moosie will die laughing when I tell her this later on tonight.
While I am trying to get the cheese tray back the ladies who ordered the tray showed up with more guests in their party than they registered for when they made their reservation. 19 days until Moosie is back..
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
 
The story of the first cheese tray needs to be told so I hope you'll bear with me. It was set up in the room an hour before the stated arrival time to let the cheese come to room temp (thank you whoever posted the link to the cheese newsletter). Then there was a big checkin around the same time. Three rooms all arriving together and one of the rooms had checked in earlier but they were all of a party. They wanted to move their bags out of the way so I told them where the first room was while showing them where the stairs were for the second room.
Off they went to bring the heavy bags to the first room. Then no one returned to check in. One of the party came to me to ask where her bathroom was, she couldn't find it in her room. She had wandered off and put her things in the room with the cheese tray! And she took the cheese tray and gave it to the rest of her family to eat! This was a family that arrived in a stretch limo and they wandered off and went into someone else's room (with the door closed to prevent such an incident) and took their food! Moosie will die laughing when I tell her this later on tonight.
While I am trying to get the cheese tray back the ladies who ordered the tray showed up with more guests in their party than they registered for when they made their reservation. 19 days until Moosie is back..
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
.
Tim_Toad_HLB said:
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
Thanks to years of this business it is possible to laugh this off as a comedy of errors. And it gives me a good story at the next innkeepers get together. This one might win the prize. Which is a bottle of w(h)ine.
 
The story of the first cheese tray needs to be told so I hope you'll bear with me. It was set up in the room an hour before the stated arrival time to let the cheese come to room temp (thank you whoever posted the link to the cheese newsletter). Then there was a big checkin around the same time. Three rooms all arriving together and one of the rooms had checked in earlier but they were all of a party. They wanted to move their bags out of the way so I told them where the first room was while showing them where the stairs were for the second room.
Off they went to bring the heavy bags to the first room. Then no one returned to check in. One of the party came to me to ask where her bathroom was, she couldn't find it in her room. She had wandered off and put her things in the room with the cheese tray! And she took the cheese tray and gave it to the rest of her family to eat! This was a family that arrived in a stretch limo and they wandered off and went into someone else's room (with the door closed to prevent such an incident) and took their food! Moosie will die laughing when I tell her this later on tonight.
While I am trying to get the cheese tray back the ladies who ordered the tray showed up with more guests in their party than they registered for when they made their reservation. 19 days until Moosie is back..
Wait a minute. The guests from one room TOOK the cheese tray you set up in another room? Yowza. Did you try to upsell the thieves and get them to buy a platter?
 
The story of the first cheese tray needs to be told so I hope you'll bear with me. It was set up in the room an hour before the stated arrival time to let the cheese come to room temp (thank you whoever posted the link to the cheese newsletter). Then there was a big checkin around the same time. Three rooms all arriving together and one of the rooms had checked in earlier but they were all of a party. They wanted to move their bags out of the way so I told them where the first room was while showing them where the stairs were for the second room.
Off they went to bring the heavy bags to the first room. Then no one returned to check in. One of the party came to me to ask where her bathroom was, she couldn't find it in her room. She had wandered off and put her things in the room with the cheese tray! And she took the cheese tray and gave it to the rest of her family to eat! This was a family that arrived in a stretch limo and they wandered off and went into someone else's room (with the door closed to prevent such an incident) and took their food! Moosie will die laughing when I tell her this later on tonight.
While I am trying to get the cheese tray back the ladies who ordered the tray showed up with more guests in their party than they registered for when they made their reservation. 19 days until Moosie is back..
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
.
Tim_Toad_HLB said:
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
Thanks to years of this business it is possible to laugh this off as a comedy of errors. And it gives me a good story at the next innkeepers get together. This one might win the prize. Which is a bottle of w(h)ine.
.
I wasn't serious. LOL
At least you put out a nice spread that didn't go to waste....
wink_smile.gif

Now what about the unexpected extra folks?
Pull out the sleeping bags?
Hopefully this wil be the only funny story to tell.
 
The story of the first cheese tray needs to be told so I hope you'll bear with me. It was set up in the room an hour before the stated arrival time to let the cheese come to room temp (thank you whoever posted the link to the cheese newsletter). Then there was a big checkin around the same time. Three rooms all arriving together and one of the rooms had checked in earlier but they were all of a party. They wanted to move their bags out of the way so I told them where the first room was while showing them where the stairs were for the second room.
Off they went to bring the heavy bags to the first room. Then no one returned to check in. One of the party came to me to ask where her bathroom was, she couldn't find it in her room. She had wandered off and put her things in the room with the cheese tray! And she took the cheese tray and gave it to the rest of her family to eat! This was a family that arrived in a stretch limo and they wandered off and went into someone else's room (with the door closed to prevent such an incident) and took their food! Moosie will die laughing when I tell her this later on tonight.
While I am trying to get the cheese tray back the ladies who ordered the tray showed up with more guests in their party than they registered for when they made their reservation. 19 days until Moosie is back..
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
.
Tim_Toad_HLB said:
So did you kill 'em all with kindness or just want to kill 'em all?
Thanks to years of this business it is possible to laugh this off as a comedy of errors. And it gives me a good story at the next innkeepers get together. This one might win the prize. Which is a bottle of w(h)ine.
.
So did you have to make up a second cheese platter for those who had oderered it?
 
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