ideas for a new years eve cheeseboard....

[Flowertop]

Hi have opted for the cheeseboard on new years eve at a safari supper. any ideas to make it a really lovely looking board would be appreciated. Thought I would add some quince and grapes but to make it extra special I need your help, even ideas for decorating said board.
thanks

I was about to post a similar thread! Are you using a slate board?

YTou don't need to decorate good food.
Just get 4 really nice cheeses and on no account serve anything in plastic or wrappers or boxes.

We had some lovely local Devon cheese with quince paste.

We had Devon Blue, Sharpham Brie,Ticklemore goats, a gorgeous smoked one and a tiny truckle of some very mature cheddar.

I put mine on a wooden chopping board but anything pretty would do I reckon,grapes do look nice and are nice to have with cheese. The quince is a must imho.

The only thing I would consider is the grapes. Anything else is overkill and bordering on WAGdom.

Do I need to ask what your favourite, must have cheese is Brie?

My favourite (at the moment!) is Dolcelatte.

Wensleydale with cranberries - yum!
Brie
Shropshire Blue
GOod ole Cheddar
Good biscuits - bobs your uncle

The top ones at the moment are:

Cashel Blue

Cooleny

Brie de Meax

and

Good quality stilton.

How are you having the quince? As a jelly?

or Cooleeney even.

Cashel Blue
Brie de Meaux
Cornish Yarg
Stilton

oat cakes

I've just lost all my cheese to an ant attack, I'm gutted.

I had Stilton, mature cheddar, white stilton with cranberry, stilton with apricot, Austrian smoked, roule, brie and a ringed one with nuts on. More than I would usually put on a cheese board but went a bit mad in Morrisons as I have had enough of 50 varieties of Manchego.

Ama, just brush 'em off.

Too late my dh sprayed ant killer, all over the cheese board! GIT!

He sprayed the cheese? That's hillarious

ROFL!

Oat cakes are marvellous. I would, if allowed, have only digestives with my biscuits but I think I am unusual there.

I'm glad that supermarkets dont whack in huge chunks of Edam with their smorgasboards anymore. Awful cheese that is.

with my cheese*

doh

Oooh I love cheese

Recommend you have a couple of soft cheeses, a blue cheese (or two), a couple of hard cheeses and perhaps a novelty Christmassy one :

Soft cheese: Brie/Camembert are the most obvious, nice to have one as a sharp salty and lemony goats cheese too. There are some amazing British soft cheese companies that make lovely fresh soft cheese, alternatively the French do plenty to rave about. I had a wonderful nettle wrapped fresh sheep cheese from Wales this Christmas, not sure the label is still on it though!

Hard cheese - decent cheddar is obvious choice, some like a crumbly wendsleydale, others stick with a creamy lancashire, loads of choice there
Blue Cheese - Stilton is the obvious choice but loads of different ones including several lovely British soft blue cheeses too.
Christmassy one (yack - not my favourite!) stilton with white port, cranberry, apple smoked nonsense or apricot studded wensleydale etc etc

Calabrian fig balls look great on a cheese board at this time of year and the figs are divine too (if you don't mind eating something that looks like deer shit)

Where do you live?
I would say try and find a proper cheese shop and taste a few.

In the Tesco finest range there's one called Vignotte that we got in for a pre-Xmas party a few weeks ago - everyone LOVED it. We have bought 2 more for NYE now.

Quince jelly is great I agree. I also quite like fresh apricots as a nice fruit accompaniment as well as / instead of grapes.

What I've also seen done in some restauarants is small chunks/slices of really rich fruit cake. This goes nicely with cheese.

We had some nice biscuits from M&S West Country Biscuits for Cheese I think they were.

If you're near Devon Dart's Farm is fab for cheese,loads and they do slices of quince jelly on the counter too.

He sprayed everything, he was like a man possessed