This post started out about one thing, but turned into another.
As they often do…
The Setup: Friday Night Charcuterie Rituals
Oh, do we love our Friday evenings!
That time when work is done for the week and the whole weekend is ahead.
A time for rest, relaxation and reflection.
So we almost never cook on Fridays and just assemble whatever’s on hand into a smorgasbord, AKA a charcuterie board, to ease into our time off. (You’ll have heard this before, if you’ve been following Glover Gardens.)
It is always too much food, but the feeling of plenty and choice that a smorgasbord provides is a wonderful thing on a Friday night. We never get tired of it, the mix of colors, flavors and textures, with a glass or two of wine and a rambling conversation about what has been, and what might be.
How It Looks
When it’s just the two of us, I don’t spend a whole lot of time on the plating, but somehow the result is always reasonably attractive. I’ve shared a few of our efforts here before.
A Perfect 10
I saw a post on Instagram yesterday that sported a drop-dead gorgeous platter of food. I saw it because Sassy Bird Interiors, which is a cool spot in an also-cool co-op with art, antiques and collectibles called Shops of Century Hall in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, posted it. Sassy Bird has really nice wooden charcuterie platters, and lots of other decorative but useful treasures. It was clever of them to use this photo from a lifestyle Instagrammer to promote their platters. It certainly caught my eye!
@beautyandlifestyle_by_luz, the Instagrammer who created the platter, has tons of other gorgeous charcuterie board photos on her account (among other subjects) and is obviously very talented. To me, her creations are art, with food as the medium.
Honestly, I felt a little inadequate looking at them.
But then a comment from Broken Tune came through on my post about the hassle of Hasselback potatoes that shifted my focus. Did you see that post?
Broken Tune said, of my don’t-try-this-post, “I sometimes find it a little sad that most of the food posts out there are very glossy and perpetuate this image of “everything / every recipe is so amazing”. It does become a little repetitive and unreal. So, I thought hearing about something that didn’t quite work was really cool.”
That’s when I realized I could simply appreciate the beauty and art of the charcuterie platter created by the beauty and lifestyle blogger without having to emulate it or feeling deficient. I’m a foodie-blogger-storyteller person with a unique and real message. That’s enough.
Not Art, but Good (Enough)
So, my food styling skills will never reach the level of the artist above, but that’s ok! While my creations aren’t going to draw 57K followers or garner thousands of comments, that really not the intent. One of my old bosses used to say, “Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good,” and I love that! Apparently, Voltaire said it first, more along the lines of “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Close enough! It means that I can revel in the everyday simple appeal of our Friday night charcuteries and happily share them with you, knowing that neither you nor I expect art, but rather, a thoughtful, quirky, occasionally chaotic—sometimes even melancholic—and always authentic Glover Gardens story.
That’s all for today…happy Friday! Guess what we’re having for dinner? 😉
© 2020, Glover Gardens
p.s. Just a reminder that this is a non-commercial blog, and any recommendations are simply my opinion and not advertising.
I love it! 😀 Glossy arty creations are all very well but they just don’t beat authenticity in my book. Your board looks incredibly tasty. It also reminds me of dinners at my mum’s.