If you’re in the mood for a sharing board heaving with quality produce, gooey cheeses and some local honey, read on. Gabi Mills flexes her assembly skills.
First of all, a PSA. My favourite artist is Caravaggio and probably unconsciously, my version of putting together a snacky dinner has been influenced by the painter best known for tilting the Renaissance world’s approach to art on its head.
Known for his use of chiaroscuro (light and dark), Caravaggio has somehow found new expression in the way I put some cheese and smoked meats on a board in Subiaco.
So, to help you recreate something the artist would have enjoyed as he painted Supper at Emmaus, here’s my guide to the best Subi has to offer for all you cheese and charcuterie board fans.
First, source your board. Head to Dallimore’s and pick your wooden receptacle carefully. While you’re there, grab a honey dipper to assist with the delivery of your chosen honey rather than battling with a spoon. Dallimore’s also sell lovely cheese knives with coloured handles, just FYI.
Then onto the fun part – the food. When I start assembling a sharing board, I want a mix of soft, blue and hard cheeses, so invariably will head to Simon Johnson or Farmer Jack’s to find my fromage. This time around, I picked a Germain Triple Cream little rondel which I crowned with a few fresh, ripe figs I picked up from the Subi Farmers Market.
Part of the joy of putting something like this together is filling the gaps with unexpected things – like some thinly sliced radishes, again from Subi Farmers Market, a cranberry and pistachio rolada (think deep pink, nutty roll which can be sliced and is fabulous with cheese), and any nuts, berries and olives that you fancy.
I also picked up some ripe gorgonzola and some Jarlsberg in a block (because #drama) and that’s my cheese contingent sorted. At Farmer Jack’s I chose a hot whole salami which I sliced and scattered, alongside a fresh baguette from Wild Bakery’s stall at Subi Farmer’s Market. While I was there, I also got chatting with Clement Remond, the owner/chef of L’Atelier Gourmet Foods. I’m a sucker for a jar of pork rillettes and Chef Clement’s are impossibly delicious. He also urged me to try some of his tomato caviar and little pickles – who am I to say no?
At Simon Johnson’s, the selection of cheese biscuits is pretty mind-boggling, but I settled on something from my past. The Fine Cheese Co (made in Bath, my old stomping ground) had an elegant selection of cheese biscuits. I also picked up some chocolate coated gold almonds, continuing the Renaissance Medici vibe to the nth degree, plus some Barossa Bark with nigella seeds and little silvery pickled anchovies. Finally, I thought something sweet was the go so headed to Nosh Gourmet Gifts.
If you are yet to discover the wall of chocolate at Nosh, I entreat you to waste no further time and get there, spit spot. Because I was aiming for a burgundy/baroque aesthetic (and also because I like raspberries), I chose a bar of their Small Batch mixed berry bark milk chocolate bar and was thrilled to find some Postcode Honey for 6008.
Putting it all together is one of those moments where more is more; drape rose-pink furls of prosciutto over each other, next to freshly cut strawberries which jostle for position next to some feisty salami. Drizzle the honey over some soft cheese and let it pool in little amber puddles to discover as your guests drag biscuits through the slick of sweet and savoury tastes.
Every charcuterie board is different and each one, a work of art. I hope Senor Caravaggio would approve.
By Gabi Mills.
